The creator of Sherlock Holmes, one of the few internationally recognizable fictional characters, was by descent Irish, by birth Scottish, and by conduct a model British gentleman. Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh on 22 May 1859 into a Roman Catholic family whose cultural distinction was offset by its relative poverty. His father, Charles Altamont Doyle, was the youngest surviving son of the famous political caricaturist John Doyle and brother to Punch cartoonist Richard (Dicky) Doyle. An artist of some ability himself, Charles Doyle was sent instead to earn his living as a civil servant in Edinburgh, where he met and married Mary Foley, the well-educated daughter of an Irish doctor whose early death had forced

This article in full comprises 2961 words but only the first 150 or so words are available to non-members.

All our articles have been written recently by experts in their field, more than 95% of them university professors. To read about membership, please click here.

First published 02 January 2008

Citation: Jann, Rosemary. "Arthur Conan Doyle". The Literary Encyclopedia. 2 January 2008.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=1308, accessed 20 November 2009.]