Arthur and Sherlock Conan Doyle and the Creation of Holmes

Michael Sims

eBook - 2017

2018 Edgar Award NomineeShortlisted for the H. R. F. Keating Award from the International Crime Writers AssociationFrom Michael Sims, the acclaimed author of The Story of Charlotte's Web, the rich, true tale tracing the young Arthur Conan Doyle's creation of Sherlock Holmes and the modern detective story.As a young medical student, Arthur Conan Doyle studied in Edinburgh under the vigilant eye of a diagnostic genius, Dr. Joseph Bell. Doyle often observed Bell identifying a patient's occupation, hometown, and ailments from the smallest details of dress, gait, and speech. Although Doyle was training to be a surgeon, he was meanwhile cultivating essential knowledge that would feed his literary dreams and help him develop the mos...t iconic detective in fiction. Michael Sims traces the circuitous development of Conan Doyle as the father of the modern mystery, from his early days in Edinburgh surrounded by poverty and violence,... more