This day in history: Sherlock Holmes creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle died on this day in 1930. The Holmes body of work consists of four novels and fifty-six short stories. The Sherlock Holmes stories are milestones in the field of crime fiction.
Doyle however was a prolific writer, writing over 200 stories and articles. Doyle thought his greatest book was The White Company — a medieval adventure into which he had poured a cornucopia of research...a work that is all but forgotten today.
His book The Lost World was rather influential, and without it we wouldn't have had Jurassic Park.
Doyle also popularized the mystery of the ghost ship Mary Celeste. In 1884, Arthur Conan Doyle wrote "J. Habakuk Jephson's Statement", a short story based on the mystery, but spelled the vessel's name as Marie Celeste. The story's popularity led to the spelling becoming more common than the original in everyday use. Read more about the Mary Celeste here.
Much like his creation Sherlock Holmes, Doyle took on a number of mysterious cases himself, including the hunt for Jack the Ripper. Doyle concluded that the killer was actually a woman posing as a midwife, able to easily gain the trust of women and comfortably wear bloody clothes without arousing suspicion.
Arthur Conan Doyle also took on the case of George Edalji, and man serving time for animal mutilation. Doyle applied his powers of deduction that made Holmes famous and concluded that the mud found on Edalji’s clothes didn't match the mud at the crime scene and that the razor which was supposedly used to mutilate one of the animals didn’t have a trace of blood on it.
There is a humorous story of an exchange that Doyle had with a cab driver in Boston who surprised Doyle by addressing him by his name. Doyle wanted to know how he knew who he was. The driver replied: “‘If you’ll excuse my saying so, the lapels of your coat look as if they had been grabbed by New York reporters, your hair looks as if it had been cut in Philadelphia, your hat looks as if you had to stand your ground in Chicago, and your right shoe has evident Buffalo mud under the instep, and – and -’ ‘And what?’ queried Sir Arthur. ‘Well.’ replied the cabbie, ‘I saw Conan Doyle’ in big white letters on your trunk.’"
Despite his genius though, Arthur Conan Doyle was also enamored with the paranormal, such as Spiritualism, seances and fairies.
Listen to Doyle's brilliant short story, The Brazilian Cat
See also The 300 Oldest Murder Mystery and Crime Books & Stories on DVDrom - For a list of all of my digital books and books on disks click here
Forerunners of Sherlock Holmes 1906
The Best Thoughts & Quotes on Sherlock Holmes
Where Sherlock Holmes Came From by Arthur Bartlett Maurice 1908
Sherlock Holmes - A Criticism, article in The Academy 1897
Joseph Bell - The Original Sherlock Holmes by Carolyn Wells 1913
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