Arthur Conan Doyle (Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle) was a medical doctor and British poet, novelist, and short-story writer. In 1887, he published A Study in Scarlet and created a character of Sherlock Holmes. A Study of Scarlet is his first novel of four novels and many short stories that he wrote about Dr. Watson and Sherlock Holmes. In the genre of crime fiction, the stories of Sherlock Holmes are regarded as the milestone.
Arthur Canon Doyle was a creative writer. Apart from Holmes series, he also wrote about science fiction and fantasy about Prof. Challenger and comical stories about Brigadier Gerard, the Napoleonic soldier. He also wrote romances, plays, poetry, and historical and non-fictional novels. The early short story of “J, Habakuk Jephson’s Statement,” published in 1884 assisted in propagating the mystery of the Mary Celeste.
Short Biography of Arthur Conan Doyle
Arthur Conan Doyle’s Early Life
Arthur Conan Doyle was born on 22nd May 1859, in Edinburgh, Scotland, to a wealthy and strict Irish-Catholic family. In the world of art, the family of Doyle was well-respected. Doyle’s father, Charles, was a life-long alcoholic and only had published a few works. The mother of Doyle Mary was an educated mother who had read a lot. She would narrate outlandish stories with great enthusiasm and animation to her young son, which sparked his imagination with the spinning wild tales. In his biography, Arthur Conan Doyle writes: “In my early childhood, as far as I can remember anything at all, the vivid stories she would tell me to stand out so clearly that they obscure the real facts of my life.”
His early life was marked with uncertainty. His family split apart in 1864 due to his father Charles’ increasing alcoholism. After separation, children lived in low-income housing across the city; however, in 1867, the family reunited, and they lived together again in the Sciennes neighborhood. Over there, Arthur was the head of a Catholic street gang.
In 1868, Doyle left his parents and went to England to attend a Jesuit preparatory school Hodder Place in Stonyhurst. He attended school until 1870. After passing out of school, for the next five years, he went to Stonyhurst College. The boarding-school experience for Arthur Conan Doyle was not pleasant. He was bullied by his classmates. The school had ruthless punishments for the mischiefs of students. With time, Doyle started finding comfort in his storytelling talent and established his own audience of young student readers.
Medical Education and Career
In 1876, Doyle graduated from the college, and his parents expected him to study art by following the footsteps of family. However, they were surprised when Doyle decided upon studying medicine from the University of Edinburgh. At university, Doyle encountered Professor Dr. Joseph Bell, who later turned out to be his mentor. It was the keen observational power of Prof. Dr. Joseph Bell that inspired Arthur to create Sherlock Holmes, the famous fictional detective character.
It was at the University of Edinburgh that Doyle met his classmates who also turned to his future friends and authors Robert Louis Stevenson and James Barrie. Though Doyle was a medical student, he attempted to write his first story, “The Mystery of Sasassa Valley,” during his medical years. The story was followed by another short story, “The American Tale.” “The American Tale” was later published in the journal London Society.
When Doyle was in the third year of medical, he took the post of ship surgeon on a ship navigating for the Arctic Circle. Doyle’s sense of adventure was awakened with this voyage. He also incorporated this feeling in his story “Caption of the Pole Star.
Doyle went back to medical school in 1880. In the university, Arthur became interested in Spiritualism and invested his great time in studying it. He also attempted to spread the spiritual beliefs in his written works as well. In 1881, he completed his study and received his Bachelor of Medicine degree. At the same time, he also denounced his Roman Catholic faith.
Doyle was appointed as a medical officer abroad in a steamship, Mayumba, that was traveling to Africa from Liverpool. When his time of Mayumba ended, he settled in England for a short time. When his money was about to end, he went to Portsmouth and opened his own clinic. The next few years of his life were spent in a struggle to balance a growing career in the field of medicine and his fame as an author. Later, Doyle gave up his medical career and devoted his life to his faith and writing.
Personal Life
In 1885, Doyle married his first wife, Louise Hawkins. The couple lived in Upper Wimpole Street and had two children. His wife died due to tuberculosis in 1906. Doyle married again to Jean Leakie and had three more children.
Writing Career
Doyle started writing a mystery novel, A Tangled Skein, in 1886. After two years, the novel was renamed as A Study of Scarlet and was published in the magazine Beeton’s Christmas Annual. The novel, with its most famous detective character Sherlock Holmes, earned his great fame. In 1887, Doyle published two letters about his conversion to Spiritualism in a weekly periodical.
From 1887 to 1916, Doyle was an active participant in the Spiritualist Movement. The books he wrote during this time are The Stark Munro Letters, Beyond the City, and A Duet with an Occasional Chorus. He also wrote historical novels, particularly on Napoleonic wars. These novels include The Great Shadow and Rodney Stone.
In the 1890s and 1890s, Doyle also wrote his four most famous novels on Sherlock Holmes. These are The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Sign of Four, The Hound of Baskervilles, and The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. Arthur Doyle also wrote a series of works in the first two decades of the twentieth century to spread his faith. These works include The New Revolution, History of Spiritualism, The Vital Message, and The Wanderings of a Spiritualist.
In 1928, Doyle published a collection of stories of Sherlock Homes under the title of The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes.
Death
Doyle was diagnosed with Angina Pectoris in the early stage; however, he refused to follow the instruction of doctors. In 1929, he went to the Netherlands to get on Spiritualism. When he returned home, he had severe chest pain. He was bedridden afterward in Crowborough, England. On 7th July 1930, Doyle died due to a heart attack.
Arthur Conan Doyle’s Writing style
Sir Arthur Conan wrote more than a hundred works, and his work is best known for his detective stories of Sherlock Holmes and a variety of other works. He is famous for his creativity and distinctive style. Doyle uses imagery, metaphor, and analogy regularly is all his works. The influence of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle comes from his skill of employing literary devices, planes narrative implementation, thrilling dialogues, and skills to provoke terror and plotting among the readers. He uses his devices as turning points in detail. Therefore, the story and plot depend solely on these devices and techniques. The 18th-century author, Arthur Conan Doyle, has a lot to teach about writing a novel that focuses on horror, detective stories, science fiction, and historical fiction.
The writing style of Arthur Conan may appear to be modern because the language he employed in his writing was ahead of his time. When compared to the diction of his contemporaries, the language of Doyle is a little bit domestic as he was supplying his work to a large audience. However, the style of Doyle is not elementary. He is an expert in employing multiple literary devices at the same time, even in the same sentence. His novel “The Lost World” is the best example of employing a multitude of literary devices.
When describing the characters, Doyle first refers to him as dangerous, and they employ sarcasm for creating humor. For example, stunted Hercules. His style has an elegant rhythm that makes the long sentences flowery. He uses alterations at the end of sentences with a satisfying arrangement of syllables.
The style of Doyle is usually described as “too literary” or flowery.” However, in the series of Sherlock Holmes, his verbosity is associated with the plot. Using the mouse piece of Sherlock Holmes, Doyle defends his style. In the novel “The Sign of Four,” Holmes says: “It is simplicity itself, so absurdly simple that an explanation is superfluous; and yet it may serve to define the limits of observation and of deduction.”
Another narrative technique of Doyle is to use Watson as a narrator and voice in the head of readers. The question and assumptions made by Watson are the ones that any clever readers might be asking while reading the detective stories. The narrative of Sherlock makes the plot less predictable and challenges the mind of readers. Doyle does not want his readers to feel clear or outwit him by assuming the story before its end; however, he does allow them to participate in the story by their assumptions.
Doyle also uses the description and details of the stories for dialogues and explores the plot and characters. In the novel The Poison Belt, there is a side splitting exchange of dialogues between Professor Challenger and Lord John. In the novel, Doyle does not seem intent to portray Summerlee as an innocent person; however, it shows him as a serious entertainer. Similarly, he does not intend to show Lord Lee as an irritable old man. His narration of dialogues illustrates the mastery of the fictional dialogue of Doyle.
Conceivably the plots of his stories illustrate the legacy of Doyle that captivate the readers. The themes and subjects he deals with show his ability to distinguish terror and wonder everyday experiences. His works have been adapted to the works of contemporary writers.
The first three novels of Doyle on Sherlock Holmes illustrate his writing style in all his works. These novels demonstrate his use of style and literary devices. The technique of the novels and other works remains the same throughout his works, though the subject, setting, and villains change.
A Study in Scarlet, The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Sign of Four, are the first three Sherlock Holmes novels. From the perspective of plots, these novels are completely different from each other. However, there are remarkable similarities in style and technique. One of the most obvious techniques that Arthur Conan Doyle employs is the all-encompassing use of adjectives to give extensive details to the readers. Doyle’s description of the setting enables the reader to imagine the exact setting, as described by the narrator, and easily expose themselves to the surrounding.
The narratives of Holmes are linear, and Watson provides details of the events. There is a first-person point of view. While recounting the tale, Watson leaves no details, usually in a mysterious way, and foreshadows the upcoming events of the plot. The mystery unfolds like the plot of the story progresses, and characters and events are revealed step by step, and in the end, the criminal confesses.
The novels are narrated in the past tense; however, the narration is made intentionally anticipating and suspicious. Only those details are revealed by Watson, which he knows and makes the readers wait for the “big reveal” at the end of the tale. By gathering lots of details, Watson gets a stronghold on narrative. He apparently places his details directly into the scene.
For example, in the novel The Hound of the Baskervilles, the narrator says that his journey was smooth and pleasant, he had spent it to make close association with his two companions and playing with the dog (spaniel) of Dr. Mortimer. The narrator (Watson) continues to say that in a few hours, the earth had turned ruddy, the brick had turned into granite, and in a well-hedged field, the red cows gazed; the lush green grasses and more luxuriant vegetation advocates the richer and damper climate.
As described before, the novels of Sherlock Holmes are dealing with completely different subject matters; however, they follow the same pattern in style and technique. Doyle’s narrator Watson, in recounting the adventures, also refers to his period and its shortcoming by incorporating it in his narration.
In the late 19th century, there was a massive increase in the population of London. This increase in the population contributed a lot to culture change. Overpopulation and poverty gave rise to slums and compartments of perverted places and people. Conan talks about these issues in his works, particularly in his novel The Study of Scarlet, in which the villain or antagonist was a citizen of a lower class.
The stories of Sherlock Holmes also portray the culture of the Victorian age that makes the stories more appealing to the readers. Undoubtedly, Doyle added these details on purpose. He wants to increase the popularity of his work. The same method was employed by other authors of his time, such as Dickens. By using this method, horrible conditions of people are described with subtlety.
The key element of stories of Sherlock Holmes is mysterious characterization and settings. Doyle introduces his characters in steps and stages. With the development of plot and unfolding of mysterious events, the characters are also portrayed in more depth. By establishing the method of detective stories, Conan alone gave rise to a totally new genre in English literature.
He changes the technique of storytelling through his extensive details and logic. The attention and observation of Sherlock Holmes to the observation and logic carry significant soundness in the story. For example, in the novel The Sign of Four, Sherlock Holmes reveals to Watson his science of logic and reasoning that he assumed through his logic that, that morning, he had visited the post-office, while his reasoning tells him that he has sent a telegram from there. Sherlock Holmes says that
…the simplicity itself is so ridiculously simple that explanation appears to be exaggeration, and could serve to provide the limits of deduction and observation. It is his observation that tells him that when you entered, there was little reddish mould adhering to your step. Right opposite to the Wigmore Street Office, the contructures have removed the payment and placed some earth in place of it.
The earth lies in such a way that no one can avoid treading in it. The earth is of specific reddish color which is not found in any other place in their neighborhood. This is how much my observation is. No comes deduction. As I sat opposite to you in the morning, I know that you have not written any letter. Moreover, there were sheets of stamps and postcards in your open desk, so there is no possibility of you going to get any of them. You went to the post office to send a wire and I deduct it by eliminating all other options.
Doyle employs extreme attention to the characters and details of his stories and turns out to be a major theme in his works. He significantly put extra details to the logic displayed by Sherlock Holmes.
Sir Arthur Conan was an influential writer who set a new trend in English literature. He displayed countless literary styles and techniques. It is challenging to report his writing skills on the basis of selected works. The individual plotlines of the stories of Sherlock Holmes and Watson are very well-known; however, the relationships between the characters and the distinctive abilities are far more famous.
The universe of Sherlock Holmes is created with the countless descriptors, metaphors, conflicts, elements of foreshadowing. All these devices were used to maintain the perfect balance of the interest of readers and also to redefine the genre of the detective novel.
Even to the present day, the stories and novels of Sherlock Holmes are really admired by the readers. All credit goes to Sir Arthur Conan for his employment of such rich technique and devices and the curious but pleasurable nature of the characters in the adventures of Sherlock Holmes.