Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, on May 22, 1859, as the oldest son to Charles Doyle, a civil servant. His parents were Irish Roman Catholics and the family lived in poverty. Throughout his childhood, he developed a close relationship with his mother, and he would send her letters when he was abroad, and this habit continued into Conan Doyle's adult life. For education, his parents sent him to a Jesuit school called Stonyherst (after finishing his years at a preparatory school called Hodder), and after 5 years, he was sent to a Jesuit school in Austria in order to improve upon his German. Then he entered Edinburgh University, where he received a degree in medicine, and he started medical practice at Southsea, England. At this time he published the first two Sherlock Holmes stories, A Study in Scarlet, and The Sign of Four, along with a history story, Micah Clarke. The profit from these stories allowed him to end his failing medical practice. During the last decade of the 19th century, he had published many novels and short stories and they made him well known. The topics of these stories included Sherlock Holmes and mystery, history and sports. Surprisingly he worked harder on the history stories than on Sherlock Holmes, but while Sherlock Holmes gained success, his history stories failed to get good reviews as with the case of The White Company. Besides his stories, the public praised him because he was different from the immoral authors like Oscar Wilde, and he also played sports. At this time he had already married to Louise Hawkins and they had two children. She then died in 1906 from tuberculosis, and he remarried to Jean Leckie the next year and they had 3 children together. Besides literature, he was immensely involved in politics as well. In 1900, he joined the hospital staff in South Africa during the Boer War and wrote two stories depicting his experiences during the war, which got him knighted in 1902. After that he became Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. As an Unionist (one who believed in conservatism), he tried running for a seat in Parliament two times, but he lost both attempts because of the popularity of the liberal reformers. As a conservative he believed that Victorian society should remain the same, and he supported British imperialism. Besides politics, he became involved with correcting the unjust rulings in the separate cases of George Edalji and Oscar Slater, which were based upon the prejudice of the British police against foreigners. He also published some books that featured science fiction and he wrote an autobiography. His last years involved World War 1 and its aftermath, which eventually ended at his grave. His enthusiasm about World War 1 ended when his son, Kingsley, and his younger brother, Innes, died in 1918 and 1919 respectively. These events added much to his interest in spiritualism, a belief in the existence of ghosts and spirits from beyond, which stemmed from his rejection of Catholicism since his teenage years. After the death of her brother, Conan Doyle's wife also joined him in seances (meetings where spirits are contacted by spiritual guides and mediums). He wrote many books about spiritualism along with the last of his stories, and he traveled to North America, Africa and Europe. The society of post-war Britain also changed and he felt alienated from it, his works where not popular as they used to be, and the young generation behaved in ways which defied his social beliefs and expectations. Then on July 7, 1930, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle died from a heart attack. Throughout his whole life, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has been in involved with the political and social aspects of Great Britain (today's United Kingdom). He rose from poverty to become one of the greatest British authors of the Victorian age and established a fine and perpetual reputation that would cease to exist. |