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Following the publication of A Study in Scarlet, Conan Doyle turned his attention to historical fiction—his first love, inspired by his mother’s stories and his admiration for the works of Sir Walter Scott. The result was Micah Clarke (1889), a tale based on the Monmouth Rebellion. It was a great critical and financial success, and it was this that convinced Conan Doyle that his future lay in writing.

The US-based Lippincott’s Magazine commissioned a second Sherlock Holmes novel in 1890, and he produced The Sign of Four (pp.46–55) in less than a month. However, it wasn’t until 1891, when The Strand Magazine began the series of 12 short stories (later known as The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes) that the character of Holmes really struck a chord with the public. It was Conan Doyle who had approached the Strand in the first instance: “It had struck me that a single character running through

SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE 17

Knighted for a The collection “The Coming of the Dies July 7

pamphlet justifying Marries his “dear His Last Bow Fairies” is published, at home in

the Boer War, and for friend” Jean Leckie is published in at the height of his Windlesham,

service in the conflict. on September 18. book form. spiritualism

. Surrey.

1902 1907 1906

Louise dies of tuberculosis

on July 4.

a series, if it only engaged the reader, would bind the reader to that magazine.” And that is exactly what happened. Within six months of the Baker Street detective’s first appearance in the Strand, in “A Scandal in Bohemia” (pp.56–61), the main selling point of the magazine was each new Holmes adventure.

Marriage and a break

Meanwhile, in 1885, Conan Doyle had married Louise (“Touie”) Hawkins, the sister of one of his patients. It was a union that was dogged by Louise’s constant ill health. In 1891, the couple moved from Southsea to Tennison Road in South Norwood, southeast London, so Conan Doyle could be closer to the literary world. However, after giving birth to two children, Mary

1917 1922 1930

1912

The Lost World

is published— the first

Professor Challenger

story.

1918 1924

Death of eldest Publishes his autobiography

son Kingsley Memories and Adventures.

on October 18.

(1889) and Kingsley (1892), Louise was diagnosed with tuberculosis; her condition declined rapidly, and she remained an invalid for the rest of her life. In 1894, they left London and moved into a new house— Undershaw, in Hindhead, Surrey— since Conan Doyle believed the air would be better for Louise’s health.

Despite the success of the first series of Holmes tales, Conan Doyle quickly became bored with his creation, and although he succumbed to the offer of an increased fee for a second series, he was determined that this should be the last. He wanted to spend more time writing historical fiction, which he saw as a more worthy pursuit, and one that would gain him greater recognition as a serious author.

In 1893, he visited Switzerland with Louise. It was while he was there that he visited the Reichenbach Falls and decided that this was a place that would “make a worthy tomb for poor Sherlock, even if I buried my banking account along with him.” So in the last story of the second collection, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1893), he consigned his hero to the watery depths of the Reichenbach Falls, locked in the arms of the criminal mastermind Professor Moriarty.

Ignoring the public howls of complaint about his murder of Holmes, he concentrated on a wide range of other writing projects, including a tale of Regency life (Rodney Stone, 1896), a novel about the Napoleonic wars (Uncle Bernac, 1897), and many short stories. ❯❯

18 INTRODUCTION

Conan Doyle’s favorite stories

In 1927, The Strand Magazine ran a competition asking its readers to guess which of the Sherlock Holmes stories were Conan Doyle’s favorites.

Conan Doyle announced his choices in a Strand article titled “How I Made My List.” None of the stories from The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes were eligible, since it had not yet been published as a book. However, he began by listing “The Lion’s Mane” and “The Illustrious Client” as his favorites from that collection.

The conclusive list of his favorites was as follows: first “The Speckled Band,” “The Red-Headed League,” and “The Dancing Men” for their original plots, followed by “The Final Problem,” “A Scandal in Bohemia,” and “The Empty House”—which respectively feature “the only foe who ever really extended Holmes,” “more female interest than is usual,” and “the difficult task of explaining away the alleged death of Holmes.”

He then selected “The Five Orange Pips” and “The Priory School” for their dramatic moments, “The Second Stain” for its “high diplomacy and intrigue,” and “The Devil’s Foot,” for being “grim and new.” With its description of Holmes’s early life, and “a historical touch which gives it a little added distinction,” “The Musgrave Ritual” was also given a place on his favorites list. And finally, he added “The Reigate Squire,” in which Holmes “shows perhaps the most ingenuity.”

As Conan Doyle’s stature as a writer and his wealth both grew, he became increasingly involved in public life and the literary scene. Among his distinguished friends and acquaintances was a set of authors who, like Conan Doyle, had created remarkable characters who would resonate with the public long after their deaths: Bram Stoker (Dracula); J. M. Barrie (Peter Pan); Robert Louis Stevenson (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde); and Oscar Wilde (Dorian Gray).

War and a resurrection

Conan Doyle was actively engaged in the Boer War (1899–1902), offering medical assistance at the Langman Field Hospital in Bloemfontein in South Africa

Conan Doyle on the way to the US in the 1920s with his second wife Jean and their children (from left): Lena Jean, Denis, and Adrian.

in appalling conditions and visiting the front; he later wrote up the history of the war and a pamphlet vindicating the actions of the British Army.

It was at the turn of the century that Conan Doyle hit upon a plot for a new mystery story—The Hound of the Baskervilles (pp.152–61). Constructing the framework of the story with the aid of his friend, journalist Fletcher Robinson, the author realized that he needed a central character to play detective, and so he resurrected Sherlock Holmes. The novel was set in 1889, two years before Holmes supposedly fell to his death at the Reichenbach Falls. It was first serialized in the Strand in 1901 and published in book form in 1902. In the same year, Conan Doyle was given a knighthood in recognition of his pamphlet on the Boer War and service at the front—although many felt that the honor was more

SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE 19

In the 1920s, magician and escape artist Houdini put on shows to expose false psychics and mediums. He had been friendly with Conan Doyle, but the two men fell out over a séance.

of a thank-you for bringing about the return of Sherlock Holmes. By 1904, the author succumbed to the offers of large fees and began writing more Holmes short stories.

A second marriage

Conan Doyle’s relationship with his wife Louise was a strong friendship rather than a passionate romance, and it wasn’t until he met Jean Leckie that he experienced the full emotional force of romantic love. He first encountered this attractive Scottish woman—14 years his junior—in 1897, and fell head over heels in love with her. He confessed to his mother how he felt about Jean and told close friends, too, who were divided on the subject; Conan Doyle’s brother-in-law, E. W. Hornung (the writer of the Raffles detective stories), was furious at what he considered to be infidelity. However, Conan Doyle was not physically unfaithful to Louise. His strong personal code of chivalry forbade him to take his affair with Jean into the realms of sexual congress. Nevertheless, the strain must have placed Conan Doyle upon the psychological rack. His fondness and sense of duty to his invalid wife kept him by her side, while at the same time his passion for Jean tormented both his heart and mind.

Louise died in 1906, and Conan Doyle married Jean a year later. Shortly after the wedding, they moved to a new house—Little Windlesham, in Crowborough, Sussex. It was a happy marriage, and Jean bore Conan Doyle three more children: Denis (1909), Adrian (1910), and Lena Jean (1912).

On the side of justice

It was during this period that Conan Doyle became involved in a personal fight to establish the innocence of a Parsee, George Edalji, convicted of horse and cattle maiming in Warwickshire. Using the methods of his detective hero, Conan Doyle was able to establish that Edalji could not have performed the savage attacks on the animals because of his very poor eyesight. (The writer Julian Barnes, fascinated by the case, recounted the story in his 2005 historical novel Arthur & George, which was later dramatized and broadcast on television in 2015). ❯❯

20 INTRODUCTION

In addition, there were other causes that Conan Doyle took up where he felt that injustice had been wrought. His moral standards prompted him to investigate matters where he believed that misjudgments had been made. Notably, he campaigned to have the death penalty lifted from Roger Casement, a traitor during World War I, but he was not successful. Similarly, he protested the innocence of Oscar Slater, a German Jew accused of murder: thanks to Conan Doyle’s efforts, Slater was finally released in 1927 after serving 18 years of a life sentence.

Spiritualism

With the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Conan Doyle became instrumental in forming the local volunteer force—a forerunner of the Home Guard—and acted as a war correspondent, visiting the battlefronts. Perhaps it was the senseless slaughter of so many young lives that revitalized his

A man’s soul and reason are his own and he must go whither they beckon.

Arthur Conan Doyle

Letter to The Scotsman (October 1900)

interest in spiritualism, for in 1916 he became convinced that he should devote his final years to the advancement of this belief. It was a decision that was further strengthened by the tragic death of his son, Kingsley, who passed away at the age of 26 after succumbing to pneumonia following his wounding on the Somme in 1918.

In the last decade of his life, Conan Doyle gave most of his time and energy to lecturing on spiritualism in Australia, the US, Canada, and South Africa. He was careful and thorough in testing mediums, but there were occasions on which he was deceived, and his critics seized upon these to illustrate what they regarded as his credulity. Certainly, when two young girls claimed to have seen and photographed fairies in a watery dell near their home in Cottingley, Yorkshire, and Conan Doyle (together with Edward Gardner, a leading Theosophist) declared them to be genuine, he appeared very gullible.

It was Conan Doyle’s obsession with spiritualism and his search for proof of a life beyond death that led him into a brief friendship with the magician Harry Houdini, who was also a spiritualist. The two men eventually fell out after a séance in which Lady Jean Conan Doyle (Arthur’s wife), acting as a medium, apparently received a written message from Houdini’s dead mother. As the magician’s mother was a Hungarian Jew and couldn’t speak or write a word of English, Houdini denounced the séance as being false. The magician also later wrote a mocking article about the incident, sealing the rift between the two men.

A fitting end

The spiritualist tours were arduous and physically draining, and Conan Doyle’s health suffered as a result. He was now in his late sixties, but it appeared that he was making no allowances for his advancing age. In 1929, he suffered severe pains in

The “Cottingley Fairies” photos, faked by two young girls in 1917, fooled many people—including Conan Doyle— into believing fairies existed. The girls cut out illustrations from magazines, securing them in place with hat pins.

SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE 21

A new Holmes tale?

In 2015 a new Sherlock Holmes story was discovered in an attic in Selkirk, Scotland. “Sherlock Homes: Discovering the Border Burghs and, by deduction, the Brig Bazaar” may have been written by Conan Doyle in 1904 (though this has not yet been confirmed), as part of a booklet of short stories titled Book o’ the Brig. The booklet was printed to raise money to replace a local bridge that had been destroyed by flooding in 1902. Conan Doyle regularly visited Selkirk,

his chest and was diagnosed with angina. The doctors advised that he cancel all his spiritualist lectures, but the author was adamant that he would not let the public down by failing to honor his engagements. On his way to the Albert Hall, he suffered a violent attack, and from then on all physical exertion was forbidden. Some little time later he was discovered lying in the hallway of his home, clutching a single white snowdrop in his hand. He had seen the flowers through the window and had struggled from his sickbed to take one of the blooms.

My mother’s and father’s devotion to each other at all times was one of the most wonderful things I have ever known.

Adrian Conan Doyle

The New York Times (July 8, 1930)

and may have contributed the story to assist locals in their fundraising efforts. He was involved in politics at this time, and seeking election as a Liberal Unionist.

In the story, Holmes uses his powers of observation and deduction to predict that Watson is about to travel to Selkirk to open a bazaar to raise money for a bridge. In typical Holmesian style, the detective announces that although Watson has not told him of his plans, his actions “have revealed the bent of your mind.”

By now, Conan Doyle knew he was dying. A few days before his death he wrote: “The reader will judge that I have had many adventures. The greatest and most glorious awaits me now.” He informed his family that he did not wish to pass away in bed, so they helped him to a chair where he could look through the window at the Sussex countryside beyond, and he died there surrounded by his family on the morning of July 7, 1930. His last words were to his beloved Jean: “You are wonderful.”

He was buried in the garden of his home at Windlesham, but his remains were later moved to the nearby churchyard at Minstead. The inscription on his gravestone is “Steel True, Blade Straight.”

A man of many parts

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was a remarkable man in all areas of his life. His literary output covers perhaps a wider range than any other writer of the 19th and early

Conan Doyle’s final resting place is with his second wife Jean in the graveyard at the Church of All Saints in Minstead, Hampshire.

20th centuries: as well as detective stories, he wrote poetry, plays, domestic dramas, sea stories, historical romances, supernatural chillers, medical tales, and various spiritualist tracts.