Authors in History, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, was born in Edinburgh on 22nd May 1859, of Scots-Irish parentage. His family was Roman Catholic and he was educated at a series of Jesuit schools between 1868-76.
He went on to become a medical student at Edinburgh University, this training provided him with a career in medicine as well as giving him knowledge which was to prove useful in creating his famous Detective with his forensic knowledge.
In 1877 Conan Doyle became the surgeon's clerk to Joseph Bell, an Edinburgh surgeon, whilst also having other temporary medical assistantships during the next three years.  He also served a seven month contract on a whaling vessel in 1880. He held various posts but none of them for very long, including another brief spell as a ship's surgeon, this time sailing to Africa.
By 1882 he had begun writing, and his first short story was published in 1883, entitled "The Captain Of The Pole Star". Publication of other short pieces followed on a regular basis over the next three years. By 1886 Conan Doyle had started work on a novel, a mystery which was to introduce the reading public to the consulting Detective, Sherlock Holmes.
This was called a Study in Scarlet and was published in 1887 and was the first of many subsequent adventures and was the seed of what was to become for Conan Doyle an ambivalent relationship with the character of Sherlock Holmes. In 1891 Conan Doyle established a Harley Street practice as an eye specialist. In the same year, six short stories featuring Holmes appeared. They were published between July and December in the monthly editions of The Strand Magazine, the periodical which was to publish the stories exclusively until 1927.
 At one point Conan Doyle decided to kill off the violin-playing cocaine addict detective because he said that if he was tired of thinking of new plots for him each month, then his readers must also be tired of it. Conan Doyle also wanted to branch out into other writings and felt that he was being confined by his tie to The Sherlock Holmes Adventures. However due to public pressure and popular demand he actually brought the Detective back to life and continued to write Sherlock Holmes Adventures.
He died in 1930 leaving the following titles, A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of The Four, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Return of Sherlock Holmes, The Valley of Fear, His Last Bow, The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes, The Uncollected Sherlock Holmes.