You know you've arrived when kids dress up as one of your best and beloved characters and when people say things like, "No shit, Sherlock," when they are berating one of their closest friends. There is an entire Wikipedia page devoted to my favorite author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and you can find it here at this link: Arthur Conan Doyle - Wikipedia He was an amazing man.
Now, just to be fair, I need to tell you a bit about the man before I go off and tell you that today is his birthday and tell you that he was born (of course) in my favorite city of all time, Edinburgh, Scotland. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was NOT always a writer. Most people have no idea whatsoever that he was first educated at the University of Edinburgh School of Medicine and that he is really so so so much closer to the character of Dr. John Watson than he would ever have been considered as resembling the character of Sherlock Holmes. Why people (mostly those who only read one or two of his books) think that he wrote as if he himself was Sherlock is flat beyond me. First of all, Sherlock is tall, thin, gangly, and has a peckish nose. He was clean-shaven and smoked chronically. Not so much with Dr. John Watson. Besides, the narrator is the one who really steals the thunder if you ask me.
Doyle was born with another middle name, that of Ignatius. What? Yes, it's true. I didn't know that until recently, just like I didn't know until recently that Sherlock Holmes has a brother! He does! For more about him, you'll need to read the books. Today is NOT Sherlock's birthday; it's Arthur's birthday. His mother, Mary Foley, was an Irish Catholic, and his father, Charles Doyle, was English, but he, too, was Irish or had mostly Irish descendants. Today, if Arthur Conan Doyle were to take a popular DNA test, he would not show up as being Scottish at all! That's incredible to think, really, considering he is one of the most recognized Scotsmen ever.
Before he was an author, he was a successful doctor. Born in 1859, he was just 17 years old when he attended University. After nearly five years, he graduated and worked as a practicing assistant to licensed doctors, what we would call a P.A. today. He also studied botany, thinking he may want to go into the field of the apothecary to blend and make medicines for healing. While he was studying, he wrote short tales, and one or two were published in Blackwood's Magazine, creating a stir among some of his colleagues and professors. I can only imagine! In 1879, he published a serious medical article in the British Medical Journal titled "Gelsemium as a Poison." It was considered so well written and studied that police wondered if he may have given a suggestion to would-be killers!
In 1880 before he graduated, he was considered a doctor in training, and he was the ship doctor of a whaling ship called the Hope of Peterhead. Yeah, not the best name, really. I think I could think of something else. He later became a ship's surgeon on a ship called the SS Mayumba on its way to the West African coast. This guy got around! He had so many wild and exciting adventures; it's no wonder he was able to pen (literally with ink) the books he did, the stories he told, and the many, many shorts that people rarely even know about. You say his name, and people instantly think of Sherlock. That's fair, but Peyton Manning played for the Denver Broncos as well as the Indianapolis Colts. Doyle had many, many sides.
The house where Doyle was born has been demolished and is now part of a street right in the middle of the Royal Mile area or close to it in central Edinburgh. It's actually an area called Edinburgh City Centre. There is a pub nearby bearing his name, and there is a plaque so people can at least know where he was first introduced to the world. I wonder if people realized that the man was quite stocky and was considered a bigger man. He wasn't fat, but he was hefty. He played goalkeeper, rugby, and cricket, and he loved to bowl. Bowling in Scotland isn't the same as it is in the U.S., but he excelled at it; would we expect anything less?
He met, fell for, and married a woman named Louisa Hawkins. She was the mother of two of his children; when she died of tuberculosis in 1906, he had been nursing her for quite a long time. It was during her last year of life that Doyle met Jean Leckie and subsequently fell in love with her. He maintained a plutonic relationship throughout the last year of his wife's life, but soon afterward, he and Jean were married. This upset friends and family, but they felt it best to be together and not to live apart in a "game-like relationship," as one family member coined it. Jean and Arthur had three children together, and not one of these five children had any offspring! This is incredibly sad for the world when you think bout it. There are no direct descendants of the man.
Well, it is with great esteem and honor in my heart that I say (and sing) Happy Birthday to the man, the writer, the doctor, and the legend who is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Today, he would have been 164 years old -- but he died in 1930 at the age of 71. His life and death are discussed in my new book "Murder Book," and I can't wait to write that/those chapters. I am really looking forward to it. I believe tribute is deserved. I can't tell you how happy I was to have graduated on this day in 1979 from high school. As President of the Literary Club, the date did not escape me.
Photo Credit: Wikipedia
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