Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh, Scotland on 22 May 1859.
Born into a humble family, it was his extended family that supported his education all through his childhood. In 1876 he enrolled at the University of Edinburgh Medical School, to become a doctor. It was during his time at university, that Doyle began to write short stories. He published his first story, “The Mystery of Sasassa Valley” in 1879. In 1882 Doyle set up a medical practice in Southsea. The practice did not do very well and patients were few and far between. To while away the time between patients, Doyle began to write fiction. He soon published his first novel featuring the iconic Sherlock Holmes, “A Study in Scarlet” in 1886. He sold the story and…show more content… He sought solace in the idea of spiritualism and its aim of finding life beyond death. An interesting anecdote relates the story of Doyle’s friendship with the magician Harry Houdini; a prominent opponent of the spiritualist movement. Houdini insisted that spiritual mediums used illusion and trickery to convince people that they could commune with the dead. Houdini made it a point to expose these mediums as frauds. However Doyle refused to believe him, and became convinced that Houdini himself possessed some sort of supernatural powers while Houdini tried in vain to convince him that they were merely illusions and tricks. These differences of opinion lead to a bitter public falling out between these two prolific public figures.
It is interesting to note that much like the beloved Sherlock Holmes, Doyle had a strong sense of justice and personally investigated two cases that had been closed and his detailed examination of these cases lead to the exoneration of the unjustly accused. It was partly due to Doyle’s work on these cases that the Court of Criminal Appeal was established in England in…show more content… The second, The Sign of Four is a mystery full of fascinating characters and an exotic Indian treasure lost in the first war of Indian independence in 1857, and introduces the readers to John Watson’s lady love, Miss Mary Morstan. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, and the Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes are collections of short stories that follow Sherlock Holmes as he meets one of his most formidable opponents, the notorious Irene Addler in A Scandal in Bohemia, uncovers a chilling tale of murder in The Adventure of the Speckled Band, solves a centuries old family riddle in The Musgrave Ritual and meets his match in the villainous Professor Moriarty in The Final