Arthur Conan Doyle

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was a British physician that later in life decided to change his career choice and become a writer. This drastic career change caused the world to be influenced by one of the most famous authors and creators of all time. Arthur Doyle has always been inspired to become an author because of his interests in spiritualism, politics, and medicine. These interests were displayed in his mysterious writing style. You can really tell an author by his or her novels. The creation of Sherlock Holmes was his most famous writing piece and is what people really know him by. “How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?” This quote was one of his many famous quotes he had and it came from the story “The Sign of Four”. Sherlock Holmes was an intelligent detective that used knowledge and clues to solve mysteries. Sherlock Holmes was a character connected to Doyle’s life in many ways. Doyle fell into depression and had a lot of ups and downs in his life which caused him to become very sophisticated and very successful in his writing. Arthur Conan Doyle was born on May 22, 1859, in Edinburgh, Scotland. He was a normal Irish kid nothing special. At the age of six Doyle wrote his first book, and to this day it is being sold worldwide. Doyle always loved history and this is what gave him his idea for his first novel. He decided to take the events that happened in his and make them his own with his own little twist in them. Considering that Doyle was the oldest, his parents wanted to make the most out of him because they knew about his success potential. They had sent Doyle to boarding school because back then that was the only way to get an education for him. Doyle graduated boarding school in 1875 and decided to study medicine at the University of Edinburgh. During the beginning of his writing career Doyle was very frustrated because he had to wait for his parents to get there life on track financially so he could be successful and make money. In his free time he decided to write, he thought it wasn’t anything too serious but his writing was too good just to let pass. He began writing the story called “A Study in Scarlet”. This wasn’t nearly as close of success as Sherlock Holmes was. Sherlock Holmes wasn’t a hit as soon as it was done but it was inevitable, the story had everything people wanted and more. Doyle had some experience as a fashioner of magazine stories which helped improve his writing to the next level. William Gillette was a famous American actor, he wrote a letter to Doyle asking for the privilege of bringing Sherlock Holmes to the American stage further publicizing Doyle’s works to the world, this really put Doyle’s writing on the map. The Titanic sank during Doyle’s life and around this time he was working on a new book, instead of Sherlock Holmes, it was called The Lost World. This story was different it wasn’t about detective and mysteries; it was actually an adventure series. In the story “The Final Problem,” Doyle writes about the death of Sherlock Holmes. Yet, why would he have such an aversion to his most popular character? “Doyle wanted to be known as an imperative writer. And the Sherlock Holmes stories were not, he felt, serious fiction”. From the time Doyle had left boarding school in 1875, he had abandoned Christianity and turned to agnosticism which was the belief that there can be no proof either that a deity exists or that a deity does not exist. “Samuel Rosenberg’s 1974 book Naked is the Best Disguise purports to explain how Conan Doyle left, throughout his writings, open clues that related to hidden and suppressed aspects of his mentality. “Conan Doyle was found clutching his chest in the hall of “Windlesham,” his house in Crow borough, East Sussex, on July 7th 1930. He died of a heart attack at the age of 71. His last words were directed toward his wife: ‘You are wonderful”. Doyle’s perspective really changed during different periods of his life. Unfortunately, he was not a Christian and did not believe in God and was apathetic to the subject being an agnostic most of his life. His belief in spiritualism can probably be rationalized by the overwhelming depression of his wife, son, and many other relatives’ deaths. He was not in his right mind. Providentially, he did contribute much to the literary world being generally considered a prolific writer in science fictions and other forms of writings.