What happened on this date in English literary history –
May 22, 1859, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of master sleuth Sherlock
Holmes was born in Scotland. Doyle studied medicine at the University of
Edinburgh, where he met Dr. Joseph Bell, a teacher with extraordinary deductive
reasoning power. Bell partly inspired Doyle's character Sherlock Holmes years
later. After medical school, Doyle moved to London, where his slow medical
practice left him ample free time to write. His first Sherlock Holmes story, A
Study in Scarlet, was published in Beeton's Christmas Annual in
1887. Starting in 1891, a series of Holmes stories appeared in The Strand
magazine. Holmes enabled Doyle to leave his medical practice in 1891 and devote
himself to writing, but the author soon grew weary of his creation. In The
Final Problem, he killed off both Holmes and his nemesis, Dr. Moriarty,
only to resuscitate Holmes later due to popular demand. In 1902, Doyle was
knighted for his work with a field hospital in South Africa. In addition to
dozens of Sherlock Holmes stories and several novels, Doyle wrote history,
pursued whaling, and engaged in many adventures and athletic endeavors. After
his son died in World War I, Doyle became a dedicated spiritualist. He died in
1930.
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