Dramaturg’s Notes Sir Arthur Conan Doyle By Lauren Halvorsen

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Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the British physician and novelist, was born on May 22, 1859, in Edinburgh and educated at Stonyhurst College and the University of Edinburgh. From 1882 to 1890 he practiced medicine in Southsea, England. A Study in Scarlet, the first of 60 stories featuring Sherlock Holmes, appeared in 1887. The characterization of Holmes, his ability for ingenious deductive reasoning, was based on one of the author’s own university professors. Conan Doyle was so immediately successful in his literary career that approximately five years later he abandoned his medical practice to devote his entire time to writing.

Some of the best known of the Holmes stories are The Sign of Four, from which this play is derived (1890), The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892), The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902), and His Last Bow (1917). Conan Doyle’s literary versatility brought him almost equal fame for his historical romances such as Micah Clarke (1888), The White Company (1890), Rodney Stone (1896), and Sir Nigel (1906), and for his play A Story of Waterloo (1894).

Conan Doyle died in Crowborough, Sussex, England, on July 7, 1930.