From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle, DL(22
May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a Scottish[1] physician
and writer, most noted for his stories about the detectiveSherlock
Holmes, which are generally considered a major innovation in the field of crime
fiction, and for the adventures ofProfessor
Challenger. He was a prolific writer whose other works includescience
fiction stories, historical
novels, plays and romances, poetry, and non-fiction.
Life
Early
life
Arthur Conan Doyle was born on 22 May 1859 in Edinburgh,
Scotland, to father of Irish descent, Charles
Altamont Doyle, and an Irish mother, née Mary Foley. His parents were
married in 1855.[2]
Although he is now referred to as "Conan Doyle", the origin of this compound surname(if
that is how he meant it to be understood) is uncertain. The entry in which his
baptism is recorded in the register of St Mary's Cathedral in Edinburgh gives
'Arthur Ignatius Conan' as his Christian name, and the simple 'Doyle' as his
surname. It also names Michael Conan as his godfather.[3]
Conan Doyle was sent to the Roman
Catholic Jesuit preparatory
school Hodder
Place,Stonyhurst,
at the age of nine. He then went on to Stonyhurst
College, but by the time he left the school in 1875, he had rejected Christianity to
become anagnostic.[citation
needed]
From 1876 to 1881, he studied medicine at
the University
of Edinburgh, including a period working in the town of Aston (now
a district of Birmingham)
and in Sheffield.[4]While
studying, he also began writing short stories; his first published story
appeared in Chambers's
Edinburgh Journal before he
was 20.[5] Following
his term at university, he was employed as a ship's doctor on the SS Mayumba during
a voyage to the West
African coast. He completed his doctorate on
the subject of tabes
dorsalis in 1885.[6]