Arthur Conan Doyle

Arthur Conan Doyle

CountryUnited Kingdom United Kingdom
GenderMale
Birthdaymai 22, 1859
Death1930-07-07
BiographySir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a British writer and physician. He is best known for his four novels and fifty-six short stories about the fictional consulting detective Sherlock Holmes and his assistant Dr. Watson, which are milestones in crime fiction, and for his first work featuring Professor Challenger, The Lost World (1912), which gave its name to a subgenre of speculative fiction. He was a prolific writer who produced over 200 stories and articles, four volumes of poetry, and a number of works for the stage. He was knighted by King Edward VII in the 1902 Coronation Honours.

Born in Edinburgh, Doyle published his earliest stories whilst studying medicine at the University of Edinburgh Medical School, and he served as a doctor and surgeon on two sea voyages before establishing an unsuccessful medical practice in Portsmouth. His time at sea inspired the short story "J. Habakuk Jephson's Statement" (1884), which popularised the mystery of the Mary Celeste. His first Sherlock Holmes work, the novel A Study in Scarlet, was published in 1887, and the short story "A Scandal in Bohemia" (1891) was the first of twenty-four monthly Holmes stories published in The Strand Magazine, for which Doyle became one of the most famous and well-paid authors of his time. His ambivalence towards the character led to Holmes's being killed off in "The Final Problem" (1893); but public outcry resulted in his return in The Hound of the Baskervilles (1901), and Doyle continued to write stories featuring him up to 1927. He was also known for his humorous stories about the Napoleonic soldier Brigadier Gerard.

Doyle was involved in political activism throughout his life and twice stood unsuccessfully for Parliament. He wrote in support of compulsory vaccination, the British causes in the Second Boer War and First World War and the reform of the Congo Free State. He was a fervent advocate of justice who personally investigated two closed cases, both resulting in the exoneration of the accused men and setting precedent which partially led to the establishment of the Court of Criminal Appeal in 1907. He was noted for his skill as an architect and was involved in several sports as a player and judge.

Doyle was raised a Catholic but was agnostic as a young adult, later becoming a spiritualist mystic as a result of family tragedies, and was a Freemason for two separate periods. He embraced supernatural phenomena, including psychics, telepathy, mentalism and spirit photography, and publicly supported the Cottingley Fairies, later confirmed to be a hoax, which led to a public falling-out with his friend, the American magician Harry Houdini. Doyle's works are still widely read and adapted in the 21st century, with Sherlock Holmes being recognised as the single most portrayed literary character in film and television history, and a number of fictional works have depicted or been inspired by his life.

Biography from the Wikipedia article Arthur Conan Doyle. Licensed under CC-BY-SA. Full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Part of Crew

Recently Updated Shows

Recently updated shows that might be of your interest.
Murder in a Small Town
Running

Murder in a Small Town

Karl Alberg moves to a quiet coastal town to soothe a psyche that has been battered by big-city police work. But this gentle paradise has more than its share of secrets, and Karl will need to call upon all the skills that made him a world-class detective in solving the murders that, even in this seemingly idyllic setting, continue to wash up on his shore.

GenreDrama, Crime
Sheriff Country
Running

Sheriff Country

Sheriff Country focuses on straight-shooting sheriff Mickey Fox, the stepsister of Cal Fire's division chief Sharon Leone, who investigates criminal activity as she patrols the streets of small-town Edgewater while contending with her ex-con father, Wes, who is an off-the-grid marijuana grower, and a mysterious incident involving her wayward daughter.

GenreDrama, Crime
Law & Order
Running

Law & Order

In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate, yet equally important, groups: the police, who investigate crime; and the district attorneys, who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories.

Matlock
Running

Matlock

After achieving success in her younger years, the brilliant septuagenarian Madeline Matlock rejoins the work force at a prestigious law firm where she uses her unassuming demeanor and wily tactics to win cases and expose corruption from within.

Fire Country
Running

Fire Country

In Fire Country, seeking redemption and a shortened prison sentence, young convict Bode Donovan joins a firefighting program that returns him to his small Northern California hometown, where he and other inmates work alongside elite firefighters to extinguish massive blazes across the region.