Dr. Conan Doyle (article 25 november 1893)
Dr. Conan Doyle is an article published in The Newcastle Weekly Chronicle on 25 november 1893.
Dr. Conan Doyle
To-morrow (Sunday) evening, Dr. Conan Doyle, the well-known novelist, is to lecture at the Tyne Theatre, Newcastle, in connection with the Tyneside Sunday Lecture Society. He will tell his bearers some facts about fiction, and will give readings from the works of J. M. Barrie, Rudyard Kipling, and Jerome K. Jerome. Dr. Conan Doyle was born at Edinburgh in 1859, and educated at Stonyhurst and in Germany. At seventeen be returned to Edinburgh and began to study medicine. During his student days he made his first serious attempt at a story. This he entitled "The Mystery of the Sassassa Valley," and forwarded it to the editor of "Chambers's Journal," who sent him three guineas. A voyage to the Arctic Seas in a whaler was a pleasant diversion, but it interfered with his studies. On his return he went to Edinburgh again. The famous character of Sherlock Holmes was suggested to him by a man who is still living — Dr. Joseph Bell, M.D., whose curious insight into the peculiarities of his patients impressed the young man greatly. Dr. Conan Doyle commenced the practice of his profession at Southsea, where he continued for eight years. He wrote a large number of stories for the magazines, some of which have been republished. His first success was "Micah Clarke," and from the day of its publication the genial author has been regarded as one of the first of English novelists. Dr. Conan Doyle left Southsea with the intention of starting as an eye specialist in London, but orders for stories came in, and at the end of three months he forsook medicine altogether and devoted himself entirely to literature.
