The Speckled Band and Lamb to the slaughter

Discussing The Speckled Band and Lamb to the slaughter.

British writer, creator Sherlock Holmes, the best-known detective in

literature and the embodiment of sharp reasoning. Doyle himself was

not a good example of rational personality: he believed in fairies and

was interested in occultism. Sherlock Holmes stories have been

translated into more than fifty languages, and made into plays, films,

radio and television series, a musical comedy, a ballet, cartoons,

comic books, and advertisement. By 1920 Doyle was one of the most

highly paid writers in the world.

--'This is indeed a mystery,' I remarked. 'What do you imagine that it

means?'

--'I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorise before one

has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories,

instead of theories to suit facts...'

--(from 'A Scandal in Bohemia', 1891)

Arthur Conan Doyle was born at Picardy Place, Edinburgh, as the son of

Charles Altamont Doyle, a civil servant in the Edinburgh Office of

Works, and Mary (Foley) Doyle. Both of Doyle's parents were Roman

Catholics. To increase his income Charles Altamont painted, made book

illustrations, and also worked as a sketch artist on criminal trials.

Not long after arriving Edinburgh he started to drink, he suffered

from epilepsy and was eventually institutionalized. Doyle's mother was

interested in literature, and she encouraged his son to take to books.

Doyle read voluminously. At the age of fourteen he had learned French

so that he read Jules Verne in the author's original language. Later

Doyle's second wife, Jean, said: "My husband's mother was a very

remarkable and highly cultured woman. She had a dominant personality,

wrapped up on the most charming womanly exterior." Charles Altamot

died in an asylum in 1893; in the same year Doyle decided to finish

permanently the adventures of his master detective. Because of

financial problems, Doyle's mother kept a boarding house. Dr. Tsukasa

Kobayashi has alluded in an article, that Doyle's mother had a long

affair with Bryan Charles Waller, a lodger and a student of pathology,

who had a deep impact to Conan Doyle.

Doyle was educated in Jesuit schools. During this period Doyle lost

his belief in the Roman Catholic faith but the training of the Jesuits

influenced deeply his mental development. Later he used his friends

and teachers from Stonyhurst College as models for his characters in

the Holmes stories, among them two boys named Moriarty. He studied at

Edinburgh University and in 1884 he married Louise Hawkins. Doyle

qualified as doctor in 1885. After graduation Doyle practiced medicine

as an eye specialist at Southsea near Porsmouth in Hampshire until

1891 when he became a full time writer.