Sherlock Holmes Creator
Sherlock Holmes Creator is an obituary article published in The Scotsman on 8 july 1930.
Obituary of Arthur Conan Doyle.
Sherlock Holmes Creator
(8 july 1930, p. 9)
Death of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Native of Edinburgh.
The fiction reading public of all ages, but more especially the older generation, will learn with, regret of the death at Crowborough, Sussex, yesterday, of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, at the age of 71.
Sir Arthur was the creator of the famous Sherlock Holmes, of detective fame, and of "my dear friend Watson." He was the author of over 60 hooks and plays.
PRACTISED AS A DOCTOR.
But Abandoned Medicine for Literature.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the noted author find spiritualist, died yesterday morning at Crowborough, Sussex, where he had lived in retirement for the past 22 years.
Lady Conan Doyle, two sons, and a daughter were at the bedside when he died.
Sir Arthur had been ill since November, and his illness is attributed to his work in Scandinavia in October, when he gave a series of lectures on spiritualism.
Of Scottish birth and Irish lineage, one who has been described as "a very English Englishman" was born in Edinburgh on 22nd May 1859. If he had followed the family tradition, Arthur Conan Doyle's talent would have found expression in the lighter and more humorous branches of pictorial art — his father, Charles Doyle, was a skilful painter in water-colour; his grandfather was John Doyle, the Punch caricaturist and the "H.B." of the Dickens and other book illustrations of his time; and he was the nephew of Richard Doyle, who was also on the staff of Punch, and drew its familiar cover, besides writing humorous society sketches. He turned first to medicine, and went from Stoneyhurst to Edinburgh University, where he had the good fortune to study in the classes of the late Dr Joseph Bell, whose personality and whose faculty of reading a patient's occupation and past record from his hands and from other visible traits afterwards provided Doyle with the model of his famous "Sherlock Holmes."
EARLY SUCCESSES.
After taking his medical degree in his native town, he practised as a doctor at Southsea from 1882 to 1890, when, having already made some of his early successes as a novelist, he abandoned medicine for literature — not absolutely, however, for he served as Senior Physician of the Langham Field Hospital during the greater part of the Boer War, the "History" of which he afterwards related, while he wrote also a pamphlet, on the "Cause and Conduct" of the South African conflict, of which 100,000 copies, translated into twelve foreign languages, were distributed on the Continent to confute the calumnies and delusions current there as to the actions and motives of British statesmen and soldiers. He travelled widely in other parts of the world, including the Arctic regions and the West Coast of Africa, before settling down to what became his life-work in imaginative prose literature. His first romance, "A Study in Scarlet," dealing in part with adventures in Utah, appeared in 1887, and it is noteworthy that Sherlock Holmes here makes his earliest debut. A more important work, which some have held to be his finest novel, was published in the following year. This was "Micah Clarke," a tale of the Monmouth Rebellion, in which the author — always a believer in democracy — revealed unmistakably his sympathy with the cause of the Revolution. After "The Captain of the Polestar" and "The Sign of Four" had been issued in quick succession, "The White Company," a story of "hard-blows and feats of arms," set in the England and France of the second half of the fifteenth century, came out in 1890, preceding in publication by sixteen years "Sir Nigel," to which it became the sequel. It is understood that the author was disposed to regard "The White Company" as his best work of fiction, partly, perhaps, because it cost him the hardest labour, involving as it did the study of many scores of historical books in order to supply the tone and atmosphere and the accoutrements and customs of the period.
SHERLOCK HOLMES.
Another opinion that has been attributed to Conan Doyle is that "there is no better judge of a story than the British schoolboy," whose verdict on a tale of action and adventure is more to be trusted than that of the reviewers. Certainly his earlier stories instantly caught and strongly held the imaginations of the younger body of readers; but their popularity rapidly spread among other classes and was firmly assured on the appearance of "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" in 1891. He was recognised as having created a type and species of the private detective or unofficial criminal investigator which, if not absolutely new, was most skilfully conceived and elaborated — one that set a fashion in the literature of fiction, and has had hundreds of imitators. A character was brought upon tho stage whom "everybody got to know," and to quote — who became as familiar to the reading world of our own and other lands as Sam Weller or Uncle Toby. With the name of Sherlock Holmes that of his author has become permanently identified; and there followed these early appearances of the great sleuth a succession of volumes, some of them complete stories like "The Hound of the Baskervilles," but generally in the form of detached episodes or "cases," in which clever use was made, for purposes of exposition and elucidation of the services of Holmes's fidus Achates, Doctor Watson — in whom some professed to see a shadow of the writer.
REMARKABLE VERSATILITY.
It has been stated that Conan Doyle latterly became somewhat impatient of the attention bestowed on his Sherlock Holmes's stories, and jealous on account of the comparative neglect with which some of his succeeding works were received. These continued to come from his pen in rapid succession during the last decade of the nineteenth and first decade of the twentieth century. They showed remarkable versatility and ingenuity of invention, and a great range in the choice of period, place, and treatment. Among those deserving mention are "Round the Red Lamp" and "The Stark Munro Letters," in which Doyle used up some of his medical experiences; "The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard," which with its sequel presented a vivid portrait, drawn by himself, of a fire-eater of the Napoleonic army; "Rodney Stone," a sporting novel of the time of Beau Brummell and the Prince Regent, Nelson, and Lady Hamilton; and "The Tragedy of the Korosks," [1] a narrative of the disasters that befell a pleasure party on the Nile. These were all published before the outbreak of the South African War, which, as has been indicated, made a deep mark on the career and work of Sir A. Conan Doyle, who received in 1902 the honour of being made a Knight Bachelor in part at least in recognition of his services in that struggle. It turned his attention more definitely to national and Imperial politics. He came forward as Liberal-Unionist candidate for Central Edinburgh in 1900, and fought a keen and strenuous fight which ended in his defeat by Mr G. M. Brown; and he was again unsuccessful when he contested the Hawick Burghs, as a champion of Tariff Reform, against Sir Thomas Shaw, afterwards Lord Shaw of Dunfermline. Later, his views suffered a relapse in the direction of Irish Home Rule, but he never found his way into Parliament, but turned with fresh zest to the work of writing books of romance; and also to the writing of plays, some of them founded on his stories. In 1899 he produced a play called "Halves" and in 1900 a one-act piece for Sir Henry Irving, entitled "A Story of Waterloo." His "Sherlock Holmes," prepared in collaboration with Mr William Gillett [2], was placed on the stage in 1901, and his "Brigadier Gerard" in 1906. "The Fires of Fate" and "The House of Tamperley" [3] followed in 1909, and "The Pot of Caviare" [4] and "The Speckled Band" in 1910.
MISSIONARY OF SPIRITUALISM.
In the last-mentioned year he took up the wrongs of the native races of Africa in "The Crime of the Congo"; a volume of verse, "Songs of the Road," was issued in 1911 ; and stories, "The Lost World" and "The Poison Belt," in 1912 and 1913; and "The Case of Oscar Slater," which he carried on until he obtained a re-trial that ended in the quashing of the conviction. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was deeply interested in the progress of the Great War. He described, in 1916, "A Visit to Three Fronts"; and took in hand the laborious task of writing the history of "The British Campaign in France and Flanders," in six volumes, the first of which appeared in 1915 and the last in 1920. Meanwhile, he had become gradually more and more immersed in the problems of Spiritualism; and he became not only a believer in its so-called "manifestations," but a zealous exponent and propagandist of the tenets of the occult, which he came to regard as a kind of revelation to humanity, in marked advance of that of Christianity. He considered that ex-Kaiser Wilhelm II, and his War Lords had "made the conception of religion grotesque, and brought the world of Christianity back to the days of Odin." In the new evangel received from "discarnate spirits," through mediums and their familiars was to be found "a satisfaction which no creed-bound religion could supply," and which disposed of and made out of date "the haggling claims and mythical doctrines" which have grown up around the Christian faith. His implicit acceptance of the evidence on which the belief was founded exposed him to much severe criticism. He had, however, the courage of his opinions, and not only advocated and defended his Spiritualist views in print and on platforms, but was at the cost and trouble of seeking to spread them abroad by travelling himself, in company with Lady Doyle, or sending missionaries of the cause to preach it in Australia arid America, as related in "The Wanderings of a Spiritualist" (1921) and "Our American Adventure" (1923.) He took part also in other subjects of controversy, such as Divorce Reform, which came under the public notice in the years before and since the war.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was an LL.D. of Edinburgh University; and among the other honours he held was that of Knight of St John of Jerusalem. He was twice married, first, in 1885 to Louise, daughter of John Hawkins of Minterswood, the issue being a daughter; and, secondly, to Jean, daughter of James Blythe Leckie, by whom he leaves two sons and a daughter.
- ↑ Wrongly spelled, it's The Tragedy of the Korosko.
- ↑ Wrongly spelled, it's William Gillette.
- ↑ Wrongly spelled, it's The House of Temperley.
- ↑ Wrongly spelled, it's A Pot of Caviare.
