Arthur Conan Doyle

Arthur Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1859. Doyle went to a boarding school in England and here he realized he had a talent for writing stories and he would read his stories to younger students. Doyle went to medical school at the University of Edinburgh. One of his professors Dr. Joseph Bell was an amazing doctor who mastered "observation, logic, deduction, and diagnosis." Dr. Bell's attributes were the inspiration behind Sherlock Holmes's character. Some of the darker aspects of Holmes like his addiction to drugs could have stemmed from Charles Doyle's alcoholism (Arthur Conan Doyle's father). Conan Doyle experienced emotional and physical absence from his father being admitted to Montrose Royal Asylum for his alcoholism. Doyle's first story to include Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson was "A Study in Scarlet" and it was published in Beeton's Christmas Annual of 1887. By 1891 Doyle made a deal with The Strand and began publishing Sherlock Holmes short stories. Doyle killed off Sherlock Holmes in "The Final Problem" in 1893 because he believed that his other works were being overshadowed by Sherlock Holmes stories. However, he began writing Sherlock Holmes again in 1903 and continued writing him until 1927.