Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

In 1885, he married Louisa Hawkins. Unfortunately she contracted tuberculosis and died of it in 1906. They had two children.

After the death of his first wife, he married Jean Elizabeth Leckie. The two married in 1907 and had three children. They fell in love when his first wife was still alive.

He suffered from Angina Pectoris.

Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, to Charles Altamont Doyle, a Victorian artist and Mary Foley. His parents were of Irish-Catholic descent.

His family was affluent and well respected but his father was a heavy drinker and hence he was supported by his wealthy uncles. His mother was well read. When he was a child, she sparked his imagination with the great stories she narrated.

From 1868, he began to attend Hodder Place, a Roman Catholic Jesuit preparatory school and later went to the Stonyhurst College. He subsequently went to the Stella Matutina Jesuit School in Feldkirch, Austria.

In the year 1876, he enrolled at the medical school at the University of Edinburgh. During this period he also did many jobs and first began writing short stories. One of his earliest unpublished works of fiction was ‘The Haunted Grange of Goresthorpe'.

On September 6, 1879, his piece, ‘The Mystery of Sasassa Valley', was published in the Chambers’s Edinburgh Journal. This was his first publication. That year, his non-fiction work, ‘Gelsemium as a Poison' was also published.

In 1887, his piece ‘A Study in Scarlet' was first published in the Beeton's Christmas Annual. The piece received good reviews and first introduced the characters, 'Sherlock Holmes' and ‘Dr John Watson'.

In 1888, ‘A Study in Scarlet' was published in book form. This was one of the first novels of that time to use the magnifying glass as an investigative tool. The following year, his historical novel, ‘Micah Clarke' was published.

In 1889, his novel ‘The Mystery of Cloomber' was published while the year 1890 saw the publication of 'The Firm of Girdlestone', which was later made into a silent film of the same name.

In 1890, he went on to study ophthalmology in Vienna, after which he moved to London. He later set up a practice as an ophthalmologist at No.2 Devonshire Place.

In 1890, his second 'Sherlock Holmes' novel, ‘The Sign of the Four' was published. It first appeared in the Lippincott's Monthly Magazine and later published in book form by Spencer Blackett.

He is the creative genius behind the popular fictional character ‘Sherlock Holmes', based on whom he authored more than 60 detective stories. His notable work, ‘Stories of Sherlock Holmes' is widely read, till date.