Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle was born on May 22, 1859, in Edinburgh, Scotland. The Doyle’s were a Irish Catholic family. Arthur’s father was Charles Altamont Doyle, an alcoholic, who was a moderately successful artist. When he became twenty two, he married Mary Foley, a well educated woman who was seventeen.
Mary Doyle had a love for books and was a great storyteller. Arthur said that his mother’s gift was “sinking her voice to a horror stricken whisper” when she reached the culminating part of the story. The family was very poor and had very little harmony due to Arthur’s father’s behaviour. Arthur touchingly described his mother’s great influence in his autobiography as “ 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.
When Arthur became nine, the rich members of the Doyle family paid for Arthur’s studies. He was sad all the way to England, where he spent seven years in a boarding school. It only got worse for Arthur at the school, where he loathed the bigotry about his studies and rebelled at corporal punishment.
During that time, Arthur was only happy when writing to his mother, which was a habit that stuck with him for the rest of his life. Another moment was when he practised sports like cricket, which he was good at. He also discovered his talent of storytelling during his years in the boarding school, and he found himself surrounded by a crowd of younger students, listening to the stories he had made for them.
In 1876, Arthur was seventeen and graduated becoming a very average man. He had an innate sense of humour and his sportsmanship, which took away any feelings of self pity. Arthur was ready for the real world.
Arthur’s first task was to co-sign the committal papers of his father, who was seriously ill. Arthur had written a book based around his father in a lunatic asylum in a story he wrote in 1880 called Surgeon of Gaster Fell
Normally, Arthur would have decided to pursuit an artistic career, due to family tradition. But Arthur decided to follow a medical career, influenced by Dr. Bryan Charles Waller. Dr. Waller was trained at the University of Edinburgh and Arthur was sent there for his studies.
Arthur met many future authors like James Barrie while at the university, although he was most impressed by his teacher, Dr Joseph Bell who was great at things like logic and diagnosis.
At three years of medical studies, Arthur was offered the post of ship’s surgeon on the Hope, which was about to leave for the Arctic Circle. Arthur was forced to brutally exercise but enjoyed the trip apart from that. This trip was in his first story, Captain of the Pole-Star.
Arthur went back to his studies for a year, then got his “Bachelor of Medicine and Master of Surgery”. He humorously drew a picture of himself getting his diploma, with the captions “Licensed to Kill”.
Conan was offered another medical post on the boat “Mayumba”, which he did not enjoy as much as his trip on “Hope”. After that trip, Arthur was nearly bankrupt, so he left for Portsmouth, to open his first practice.
He rented a house and worked hard and compassionately that he was able to get a stable income by the fourth year after a very hard start.
In the next few years, he was struggling as he was in between a medical doctor and an author. In August 1855, he married a woman named Louisa Hawkins, the sister of one of his patients.
In March 1866, Arthur wrote a novel which made his very famous. It was called A Study in Scarlet, which introduced Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson.
Because of his success a medical practice and a his harmonic and happy family with his first daughter Mary, Arthur was restless.
He decided to take a trip to Paris, which turned bad, and made him hurry back to London, where he opened a practice. This however, was unsuccessful, and gave him a lot of time to think. After some time, Arthur decided to try and focus on literacy and write more books like Sherlock Holmes.
In May 1891, Arthur was infected with major influenza which nearly killed him. After he recovered, he thought that it was foolish to have two careers at once. He decided to stop his medical career and focus on his literacy. In 1892, Louisa gave birth to a second child, a boy named Kingsley, who Arthur called “ The Chief Event” in their life.
During a trip to Switzerland, Arthur decided that Sherlock Holmes would come to an end in The Reichenbach Falls. After this story was published, twenty thousand readers cancelled their subscription to The Strand Magazine. After ending his literary career, Arthur decided to immense in more intense activities.
After a while Arthur had found out that Louis was diagnosed with Tuberculosis, which ended up with Louisa a short time after. Arthur went in to depression and decided to go on a tour to give talks to around thirty cities. The tour was a huge success and made Arthur happier.
Arthur quickly fell in love with Jean Leckie in March 1897, and married her later. Arthur, Jean and their two kids quickly became a family.
When the Boer war started, Arthur said that he was going to volunteer. He became a medical doctor in the war and sailed to Africa in February 1900. After the war had finished, Arthur went back to London and decided to continue his literary career.
A year late, King Edward VII knighted Arthur for helping out In the Boer War. It was said that the king was a big fan of Sherlock Holmes, that he had put Arthur’s name in the honours list to encourage him to keep writing.
Arthur lived a normal life until he decided to run for parliament in 1906, which he lost.
In September 18 1907, Arthur moved with his family to Sussex while keeping a small flat in London.
After a few years, Arthur wrote another book called The Lost World which was an immediate success. It made Arthur happy to see his book doing well.
As soon as the war broke out, Arthur, who was fifty five, decided to volunteer again. He was sent to help out hurt soldiers and spoke of things like “Body Armour” which most government officials found irritating. Winston Churchill did not, and wrote to him to thank him for the ideas.
In late 1914, Arthur made up a lacklustre reception for the second Sherlock Holmes novel. Which involves Sherlock Holmes infiltrating a German Spy Ring.
In World War I, Arthur had lost his son, his two brothers in law and his two nephews, which he felt very sad about.
In 1918, Arthur wrote very little fiction and made subsequent trips to America, Australia and Africa accompanied by their children, who were also on crusades.
In Autumn of 1929, Arthur was diagnosed with Angina Pectoris, but still decided to have one last tour to Holland, Denmark, Sweden and Norway. He was in so much pain during the whole trip.
On Monday July 7, 1930, Arthur was found clutching his heart due to a heart attack in his garden. Before departing to the afterlife, Arthur whispered to his wife “You are Wonderful.”