1859-1930. British writer, creator of the
detective Sherlock Holmes and his assistant
Dr Watson, who featured in a number of
stories, including The Hound of the
Baskervilles 1902. Born in Edinburgh, he
qualified as a doctor, and during the Second
South African War was senior physician of a
field hospital. The first of his books, A
Study in Scarlet, appeared in 1887 and
introduced Sherlock Holmes and his ingenuous
companion, Dr Watson. Other books featuring
the same characters followed, including The
Sign of Four 1889 and The Valley of Fear
1915, as well as several volumes of short
stories, first published in the Strand
Magazine. Conan Doyle also wrote historical
romances (Micah Clarke 1889 and The White
Company 1891) and the scientific romance The
Lost World 1912. In his later years he became
a spiritualist.