In our previous posting on the life of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, we left him just beginning to make a name for himself as a writer of short stories.
In this section we explain how he came to London (and moved into a medical practice in a house that we cover on our London walks) and explain how Sherlock Holmes gripped the public imagination and made Doyle sealed Doyle’s literary reputation.
The life of Arthur Conan Doyle is an important aspect of our Sherlock Holmes London walks and you will find we feature as many snippets and facts about Holmes’s creator on our tours.
Dr Arthur Conan Doyle Creates Sherlock Holmes.
In March 1886 Conan Doyle began writing a story entitled A Tangled Skein featuring the characters Sherringford Holmes and Ormond Slacker. Wisely, he later changed the title to A Study in Scarlet and the protagonists’ names to Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.
After several rejections, the story appeared in the 1887 Beeton’s Christmas Annual and was received favourably enough to justify its own separate edition the following year.
Interestingly this publication included six pen-and-ink drawings sketched by Charles Doyle (Conan Doyle’s father), who at the time was confined in a psychiatric institution in Edinburgh. Evidently the father recognized some of his own character in his son’s creation as his sketches depicted Holmes as bearded and bearing an uncanny resemblance to himself.
In 1889 Lippincott’s magazine commissioned him to write a short novel which was published in 1890 as The Sign of Four. It was this novel that made Sherlock Holmes famous and sealed Conan Doyle’s literary reputation.
In 1890 Conan Doyle went to Vienna to study the eye and on his return to England moved to London, where he set himself up in practice as an ophthalmologist in premises at number 2 Wimpole Street, a building which we cover on our Sherlock Holmes London walk.
He later recalled how, since no patients came through his door, he had ample time to devout to his Sherlock Holmes stories. It is an intriguing moment on our Sherlock Holmes London walks when we stand outside this building and ponder the young doctor developing the character of the great detective within its walls.
In May 1891 Conan Doyle was struck down with severe dose of the flu and was left hovering between life and death for a time. As he recovered he suddenly realised the foolishness of trying to be both a writer and a doctor and decided that from then on he would dedicate himself to the former.
“With a rush of wild joy” he later recalled, he took his handkerchief “which lay upon the coverlet in my enfeebled hand, and tossing it up to the ceiling in my exultation. I should at last be my own master.”
He began writing a series of short stories featuring Holmes and Watson which appeared in The Strand magazine, and which were later grouped together and published as The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. On our Theatreland, Covent Garden and Sherlock Holmes London walks we actually visit the premises in which The Strand magazine was located.
His illustrator was Sidney Paget, a talented artist who based Holmes’s appearance on that of his “strikingly handsome” brother Walter, and created the image of Holmes that has endured ever since.
The stories proved a huge success and were published in installments in the pages of The Strand magazine between July 1891 and June 1892.
But by late 1891 Conan Doyle was growing tired of his creation, feeling that Holmes was overshadowing his more serious work.
Deciding on a radical solution to his dilemma, Conan Doyle wrote to his mother informing her how he intended “winding him up for good and all. He takes my mind from better things.”
His mother responded with the advice “You may do what you deem fit, but the crowds will not take this lightheartedly.”
We will be continuing our look at the life of Conan Doyle in tomorrows blog. Meanwhile why not chack out one of our Sherlock Holmes London walks that follows in the footsteps of the great detective and his creator.
