Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
(1858-1930)
Just as Andrew Jackson Davis was called the "John the Baptist" of Modern Spiritualism, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was called the "St. Paul" of Spiritualism. He was a prolific writer on the subject and an avid proponent. And, of course, he is renowned for his Sherlock Holmes stories.
Detective stories played an important role of the human literary history. It has got extensive readers in a worldwide because of its particular literary style, wonderful story line, logical consequence and unbelievable ending. A detective story was born by Edgar Allan Poe, the first detective novel < The Murders in the Rue Morgue > in 1841, and then the British developed this literary style, therefore, and Detective stories were become very popular in both of them.
Because of British literature, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle created the detective called Sherlock Holmes is a gentleman. He is gentle as a noble.
Doyle was educated in Jesuit schools. During this period Doyle lost his belief in the Roman Catholic faith but the training of the Jesuits influenced deeply his mental development. Later he used his friends and teachers from Stony Hurst College as models for his characters in the Holmes stories, among them two boys named Moriarty. He studied at Edinburgh University and in 1884 he married Louise Hawkins. Doyle qualified as doctor in 1885. After graduation Doyle practiced medicine as an eye specialist at South Sea near Portsmouth in Hampshire until 1891 when he became a full time writer.
Charles Altamont died in an asylum in 1893; in the same year Doyle decided to finish permanently the adventures of his master detective. Because of financial problems, Doyle's mother kept a boarding house. Dr. Tsukasa Kobayashi has alluded in an article, that Doyle's mother had a long affair with Bryan Charles Waller, a lodger and a student of pathology, who had a deep impact to Conan Doyle.
MediumDoyle's first story about Holmes, A STUDY IN SCARLET, was published in 1887 in Breton Christmas Annual. The novel was written in three weeks in 1886. It introduced the detective and his Sancho Panza and Boswell, Dr. Watson, the narrator of the stories. Their major opponent was the evil genius Moriarty, the classic villain and a kind of doppelganger of Holmes. Also the intrigues of the beautiful opera singer Irene Adler caused much trouble to Holmes. |
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The second Sherlock Holmes story, ‘The Sign of the Four', was written for the Lippincott's Magazine. The story collects a colourful group of people together, among them Jonathan Small who has a wooden leg and a dwarf from Tonga islands. The Strand Magazine started to publish 'The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes' from July 1891. Holmes's address at Mrs. Hudson's house, 221B Baker Street, London, became soon the most famous London street in literature. However, already at the end of 1891, Doyle planned to end the series and in 1893 he became so wearied of his detective that he devised his death in the 'Final Problem,' published in the Strand in the December issue. Holmes meets Moriarty at the fall of the Reichenbach in Switzerland and disappears.
Watson finds a letter from Homes, stating "I have already explained to you, however, that my career had in any case reached its crisis, and that no possible conclusion to it could be more congenial to me than this."
Doyle's readers expressed their disappointment by wearing mourning bands and Strand lost 20,000 subscriptions. In THE HOUND OF BASKERVILLES (1902) Doyle narrated an early case of the dead detective. The ingenious murder weapon in the story is an animal. Because of public demand Doyle resurrected his popular hero in 'The Empty House' (1903).
In these following stories Holmes stopped using cocaine, but although Doyle's later works have been criticized, several of them, including 'The Three Garridebs,' 'The Adventure of the Illustrious Client,' and 'The Veiled Lodger,' are highly enjoyable. Sherlock Holmes short stories were collected in five books. The first appeared in 1892 under the title THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES. The later were THE MEMOIRS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (1894), THE RETURN OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (1904), HIS LAST BOW (1917), and THE CASE-BOOK OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (1927).
During the South African war (1899-1902) Doyle served for a few months as senior physician at a field hospital, and wrote THE WAR IN SOUTH AFRICA, in which he defended England's policy. The same uncritical attitude marked his history of World War I, THE BRITISH CAMPAIGN IN FRANCE AND FLANDERS, 1928 (6 vols.).
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Doyle was knighted in 1902 and in 1900 and 1906 he also ran unsuccessfully for Parliament. Fourteen months after his long-invalided wife Louisa died, Conan Doyle married in 1907 his second wife, Jean Leckie. When his son Kingsley died from wounds incurred in World War I, the author dedicated himself in spiritualistic studies. An example of these is THE COMING OF FAIRIES (1922). But he had already showed interest in occult fantasy before publishing Holmes stories. In his early novel, THE MYSTERY OF CLOOMBER (1888), a retired general finds himself under assault by Indian magic. |
Dr. Crandon, who, with his wife, Margery, had become very close friends and associates with Sir Arthur and Lady Doyle, gave a touching tribute in the Obituary Note. He wrote:
"On Monday, July 7, 1930, the world of literature, story telling, happy-home living, and the world of Spiritualism lost a leader. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has passed over."
He ended his tribute with the following:
"And so he has passed for a time, serving in a new sphere, we have no doubt, and immortal in our hearts, we are sure."
Sherlock Holmes's literary forefather was Edgar Allan Poe's detective C. Auguste Dupin and on the other hand a real life person, Conan Doyle's teacher in the University of Edinburgh, Joseph Bell, master of observation and deduction. Another model for the detective was Eugene Francois Vidoq, a former criminal, who became the first chief of the Sûreté on the principle of 'set a thief to catch a thief.'
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 This photograph shows Douglas Wilmer, who played Sherlock Holmes in the 1964 BBC1 series.
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