Arthur Conan Doyle
(22 May 1859 - 7 July 1930) - British writer.
Arthur Conan Doyle was a famous British writer best known by the series of books about Sherlock Holmes. At the same time he led a medical career . He was born on May 22nd, 1859, in the family of Irish Catholics. His mother, Mary Foley, was interested in literature and books. She taught him to be a gentleman in his youth and she would give him ideas for his stories. The future writer had to grow in a strange family, as his father suffered from alcoholism. Together they had eight children. They often had financial difficulties. When the boy was 9, some rich relatives offered to pay his education at a noble Jesuit college.
While studying, Arthur had physical punishment. At school his favourite pastimes were cricket and storytelling. The classmates often gathered around him and spent hours listening to his fictional stories. However the man who most impressed and influenced him was one of his teachers, Dr. Joseph Bell. The good doctor was a master at observation, logic, deduction, and diagnosis. All these qualities were later to be found in detective Sherlock Holmes. In 1876, he graduated from college and returned to his native Edinburgh. At that time his father was in bad condition and had to be placed in a psychiatric hospital. And Arthur decided to get medical career and entered the University of Edinburgh. There, he met future writers R. L. Stevenson and J. Barrie. As a student, he tried his talent in literary field.
The first story that he wrote was "The Mystery of Sasassa Valley". At that time he admired E. A. Poe. The same year he wrote "The American Tale" which was published in "London Society" journal. In 1880, he travelled and worked as a doctor on a ship's board. This period of his life was later described in his autobiography. A year later he explored the western coastline of Africa working on a steamship's board. In 1882, he opened the first medical cabinet in Portsmouth. In his free time he wrote detective stories. In 1885, he married Louise Hawkins. They had two children. A year later, he seriously took up literature. Soon, he published "A Study in Scarlet" story, where for the first time he mentioned Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.
In 1891, Doyle decided to finish his medical practice and concentrate on writing. The same year the magazine "Strand" asked him to write more detective stories about Sherlock Holmes. Starting from 1892 he travelled a lot with his family. At the same time he was working on the historical novel "Uncle Barnak". In 1896, Arthur was again in England and he wrote his first theater play called "Sherlock Holmes". Then he published a collection of poems, Songs of Action (1898); In 1906, his wife died. Louisa was diagnosed with Tuberculosis and he remarried the next year. With his new wife Jean Elizabeth Leckie he had three more children. During the World War I, Doyle lost many friends, close relatives and his eldest son. In the early 1920s, he took up spiritualism and lectured this science in many countries. His last book "The Maracot Deep and Other Stories" was written in 1929. The writer died on July 7th, 1930 of a heart attack.
He was a master of different literature styles: historical novels, poems, detective stories, plays.