Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle, (22 May 1859 - 7 July 1930) was a Scottish physician and writer, most noted for his stories
about the detective Sherlock Holmes, which are generally considered a major innovation in the field of crime fiction, and for
the adventures of Professor Challenger. He was a prolific writer whose other works include science fiction stories, historical
novels, plays and romances, poetry, and non-fiction.
In 1882 he joined former classmate George Budd as his partner at a medical practice in Plymouth, but their relationship proved difficult, and Conan Doyle soon left to set up an independent practice. Arriving in Portsmouth in June of that year with less than £10 to his name, he set up a medical practice at 1 Bush Villas in Elm Grove, Southsea. The practice was initially not very successful; while waiting for patients, Conan Doyle again began writing stories. His first significant work, A Study in Scarlet, appeared in Beeton's Christmas Annual for 1887. It featured the first appearance of Sherlock Holmes, who was partially modelled after his former university professor Joseph Bell. Conan Doyle wrote to him, "It is most certainly to you that I owe Sherlock Holmes. ...around the centre of deduction and inference and observation which I have heard you inculcate I have tried to build up a man."
