Arthur Conan Doyle

The tale of Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle? On May 22 1859 in Picardy Place located in Edinburgh, Scotland, the man we know today as ”Sir Arthur Conan Doyle” was born.

His early years Growing up, Arthur lived with his father, Charles Altamont Doyle and his mother, born as Mary Foley. The family was prosperous but despite that, the family suffered. Trough Arthur’s youth the family were subjected to his drunken father who gambled away all of their money trying to regain what he had already lost due to the hard economics at that time. In the year 1864 the family split up because of this issue but after only three years the family reunited. 1 ?Arthur’s family was besides their difficulties, a very strict and well-respected family in the art world. His father, Charles, who was a life-long alcoholic had very few accomplishments to speak of although Arthurs mother, Mary, was a lively and well-educated woman who loved to read. She particularly delighted in telling her young son outlandish stories. Her great enthusiasm and animation while telling the wild tales sparked her sons imagination. When Doyle was older he wrote a biography in which he says; ”In my early childhood, as far as I can remember anything at all, the vivid stories she would tell me stand out so clearly that they obscure the real facts of my life." 2

At the time that the family reunited Arthur was only eight years old, soon turning nine. His rich uncle helped send Arthur away so that he could have a better life, starting with the help of a good education. The young boy was sent away to a Roman Catholic prep school named Stonyhurst from where he later continued his education to Stonyhurst college but there he only stayed for a year.

Through Arthur’s years in school he had received his education from a religiously influenced and supported university but despite this Arthur later came to reject the faith that was given upon him to embrace, both from his school and from his fathers side of the family who were Catholics. Arthur instead embraced the agnostic belief. An agnostic is someone who neither believes nor disbelieved in the existence of a deity or deities, whereas a theist and an atheist believe and disbelieve, respectively. 3

A few years after Arthur had dropped out of school he decided to study medicine at the University of Edinburgh. At this time Arthur was only 17 years old as it was the year 1876. Arthur, who was a man of many interests put all of the time he could spare from studying into writing short texts for his own amusement. Arthur used the tales that he had heard from his mother as a boy for inspiration to capture and produce these short novels. ?In the year 1880, Arthur decided to take a year off from his medical studies to work on a whaling boat where he worked as a surgeon but he also took up the job as an medical officer on a streamer traveling between Liverpool and West Africa.

After medical school was done for Arthur, he and his friend George Turnavine Budd started a surgeon practice together but shortly after Arthur came to regret his decision and opened up his own practice instead in Elm Grove. Due to the lack of costumers Arthur got a lot of free time on his hands, time for him to continue writing short stories. In the year 1886 Arthur had finished his most important work, namely the first short story about Sherlock Holmes ”A Study in Scarlet”. He later continued writing stories about Sherlock Holmes and got them sold and published in the English Strand Magazine. His next tale of Sherlock Holmes was published in 1890 and was titled ”The Sign of Four”. 4??Sherlock Holmes Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was a very famous author most known for his book series Sherlock Holmes. The entire series contains 56 short stories and 4 novels which yet today is very popular. ??The story about Sherlock Holmes, a detective whom can solve a mystery quicker than anyone else, was inspired of a real life character namely Doyle’s professor from medical school, Dr. Joseph Bell. Dr. Joseph Bell was known to be able to tell where a person had been the day before, just by looking at his or hers boots. This was of course just one of many things that he was able to do. ??The first story of Sherlock Holmes was not published as a book, but as a short story in a newspaper as I mentioned before. People quickly began to take interest in the tales of Holmes and Dr. Watson who was Sherlock Holmes’ ”sidekick”. Together they solved all sorts of cases including, murder cases, infidelity cases and so on. After a while people began to believe that Sherlock Holmes was a real life character so the readers started to send letters to Sherlock Holmes who in real life didn’t exist so all of the letters were sent to Doyle. The letters he received contained questions and sometimes cases that people needed help solving, so Doyle did his very best to help them.

I believe that the reason for why the stories of Sherlock Holmes are still so amazing today is because it astonishes us. When we are reading or watching a Sherlock Holmes novel or film, we think we know exactly what is going on until Sherlock Holmes gives the mystery a whole new angle which we didn’t have a clue existed until he just showed us, and when he does people grow amazed of the brilliance behind the work.

In the stories of Sherlock Holmes we can read of how Holmes uses a magnifying glass as an investigative tool which today is still considered a special mark for the tales of Sherlock Holmes.

A Study in Scarlet ”A Study in Scarlet” was the first ever published Sherlock Holmes novel that was written the year 1886 but was first published the following year. The title of the book comes from a miner speech in the book given from Sherlock Holmes as he says: "There's the scarlet thread of murder running through the colorless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it." In the book we are for the very first time introduced to Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson who later through time became the most famous characters in literature. 5??In this book we get to follow the meeting of Dr. Watson and Sherlock Holmes as Watson arrives from the British war in Afghanistan after being shot in the leg. Upon his arrival back in England Watson looks for someone to share a apartment with. He meets Sherlock Holmes, a detective also in seeking of a roommate. They decide to move in together but shorty after Sherlock Holmes get’s summoned to solve the murder of Enoch J. Drebber and his secretary, Joseph Stangerson. ?Doyle wrote the story at the age of 27, but the astonishing thing is that he wrote the novel in less than three weeks. Earlier Doyle had already published some short stories in several magazines, such as the periodical London Society.

The story was originally titeled ”A Tangled Skein” and was eventually published by Ward Lock & Co. in Beeton’s Christmas Annual 1887, but only after many rejections. When this story first was released it didn’t attract very many readers as of today only 11 complete copies of Beeton’s Christmas Annual 1887 are known to exist. 6 It was first later on that the tales of Sherlock Holmes began to become more appreciated as the word spread about. More and more people during this time were also learning to read, so soon a wider crown could enjoy the stunning tales of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. ??Something that makes the novel stand out quite well is and was that it violates a cardinal rule: there is no way for intelligent readers to work out the solution for the mystery by themselves due to Sherlock Holmes extreme depth of perception. In the book we first hear of the murderer when Sherlock arrests him, which is a very rare thing. The book itself has to this day helped build up the foundations of detective fiction as it laid out some of its first steps to the genre.

After publishing several Sherlock Holmes novels, Doyle decided that it was time for him to move on, so in one of his novels which was named ”The Final Problem”, he killed Sherlock Holmes in a fight with his arch enemy, Professor Moriarty. After this novel was published in 1893, an public outcry later made Doyle resurrect Sherlock Holmes.

Other novels In addition to his great tales of Sherlock Holmes, Doyle also wrote a other novels, including ”The Lost World” and various non-fictional works. These books included a pamphlet justifying Britain’s involvement in the Boer War, for which he was knighted and histories of the Boer War and World War one, in which his son, brother and two of his nephews were killed. 7

His last years After the death of his wife in 1906 and he had already lost so many other family members, Arthur sank into depression. He managed to find comfort supporting spiritualism and attempted many times to find proof of existence beyond the grave.

On 7 July 1930, Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle was found dead, clutching his chest in the hall of Windlesham Manor which was his house in Crowborough, East Sussex. He died of a heart attack at the age of 71. At the time of his death, there was some controversy concerning his burial place as he considered himself as a spiritualist, and not a Christian. He was first buried on 11 July 1930 in Windlesham Rose Garden but he was later reunited with his wife in Minstead churchyard in the New Forest, Hampshire.

Besides living a life as a poet, a doctor and a family man, a fun fact is that Doyle twice ran unsuccessfully for parliament. He never stopped trying to achieve new goals in life.

The Victorian era This particular era started approximately in 1837 and lasted to 1901. The reason it is called the ”Victorian era” is due to the british queen who ruled at that time namely, queen Victoria.

Medical progression During the Victorian era there was peace and prosperity and other betterments in the society such as medical progression and technological advancements. The biggest medical progression was the introduction of vaccine which helped save many lives. The vaccine was created which allowed a higher rate of infants and children to survive. Also, in the year 1946 anesthetics was proposed to dental care which later made painless dentistry possible. In the hospitals the staff began to be more hygienic due to realizing the importance of clean tools and wearing gloves to prevent the spread or the conjuring of lethal bacteria. 8 ?Fertility rates At this age fetility rates increased, which was a result of what I mention earlier plus the biological and social standards that grew improved. The biological standards that improved were the better living conditions that were made in the cities where pipelines were installed so people didn’t throw their stool on the streets. This was a really important step to a better society because if it would have continued people would have become sicker more easily due to the big amount of bacteria people were breathing in and touching each day as they crossed the streets. Thanks to the pipelines the percentage of women who were able to have children increased.

The social standards that were increased during this time was that people began to marry at a much younger age than before. Scientists believe that this was the result of peace, instead of being sent away to war the men could now remain at home and focus on building up a family instead. Families and cities also now had a whole lot more money at their disposal, greater prosperity had allowed people to finance marriage and new households earlier than previously possible. When the marriage rates grew, so did the fertility rates alongside it due to the births inside of the marriages. 9

Religion during the Victorian era?Under the rule of queen Victoria the church lost most of its influence as the world began to grasp a larger picture of science and started to react on the concrete proof which stood against the earlier spoken words of Christianity. The church had a grip on the upper classes who they tried har to appease but the payed very little attention on the lower classes which they thought were less important. It wasn’t exactly the ”little people” who payed the most for the cost of the church. The church steadily began losing influence on the masses, especially in the urban locations.

Source criticism ?1 http://www.sherlockian-sherlock.com/life-of-conan-doyle-biography-video.php 12 mars 2014?I believe this is a viable source to do that it is a documentary film which you can see when watched isn’t made in haste but instead is made in care for educational reasons. I do not believe that someone spends so much time in making a documentary with out having checked their facts. The site is though a fansite and doesn’t contain a ”about us” or ”contact us” tag so therefore we cannot rely that the information is 100 percent correct but due to the fact that what they say in the video applies with the information given in the keynote we got to see in class, I do believe that I can trust this source.

2 http://www.biography.com/people/arthur-conan-doyle-9278600 12 mars 2014?This site I have used before and I believe it to be trust worthy. I checked around with other various sites to make sure that the information on this page was indeed correct. Down below on the site I could find ”About us” and ”Contact us” tags which led me to other information on these particular things which makes me beleive that this site is also trust worthy.

3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnosticism 7 mars 2014?In wikipedia I know that anyone can go in and change what it says, but what are the odds that someone makes up something like that just for fun? I also compared it to the swedish translation of the subject which was consistent with what it said on the english page. ? 4 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Conan_Doyle 11 mars 2014?As I again read the keynote you gave me and visited various sites to confirm the information I understood that the information on this page was ”the real deal”.

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