Arthur Conan Doyle

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) was a Scottish-born British writer and physician who created the detective Sherlock Holmes, first seen in A Study in Scarlet in 1887.

Born in Edinburgh on 22 May 1859, he studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh from 1876 to 1881 and took his MD in 1885, having set up a practice in Southsea, Portsmouth, in 1882. A Study in Scarlet appeared in Beeton's Christmas Annual for 1887, published by Ward, Lock & Co., which paid 25 pounds for the copyright. The Sign of the Four followed in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine in February 1890. From 1891, beginning with "A Scandal in Bohemia", Holmes stories ran in The Strand Magazine. Doyle killed Holmes off in "The Final Problem" (1893), then brought him back with The Hound of the Baskervilles, serialised in the Strand from August 1901 to April 1902, and revived him fully in "The Adventure of the Empty House" (1903). Holmes appears in four novels and 56 short stories, the last published in 1927.

Beyond Holmes he wrote the humorous Napoleonic Brigadier Gerard stories and The Lost World (1912), the first Professor Challenger book. He was knighted in 1902 and later became a prominent spiritualist, publishing The New Revelation in 1918. He died at Crowborough, Sussex, on 7 July 1930.

For collectors. The 1887 Beeton's Christmas Annual is very rare: Wikipedia counts eleven known complete copies, and a copy sold at Sotheby's on 21 June 2007 for 156,000 dollars. The first book edition of A Study in Scarlet was published by Ward, Lock in July 1888 with drawings by Doyle's father, Charles Doyle; the first American edition came from Lippincott in 1890. The Sign of Four first appeared as a book from Spencer Blackett in October 1890, and The Hound of the Baskervilles from George Newnes on 25 March 1902.