There was a literature not for the elite, but for the people.
The Gothic novel, the Newgate novel, even the so-called penny dreadful contained elements of mystery, suspense, and horror which set the stage for what Poe called the tale of ratiocination. A few years later, the French writer Gaboriau used some of these same elements in his novels, collectively referred to as his "romans policiers," but which the growing number of followers of the form came to call the mystery or detective story. In A Study in Scarlet (1888) Sherlock Holmes disparages both of these writers, but only because his creator wished to add personality to his character. In reality, the author was among the greatest admirers of both Poe and Gaboriau.
Arthur Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, on 22 May 1859. "Art: in the blood is liable to take the strangest forms," Sherlock Holmes once said about his own family. He might have been speaking of his creator. Conan Doyle's grandfather John Doyle was an artist and political cartoonist of the Georgian and early Victorian era. Conan Doyle's father, Charles Doyle, made a precarious living at the Scottish Office of Works, but he was also an artist, supplementing his income with book illustrations.
This is a free page. This page contains 188 words. This
biography contains 12,245 words (approx. 41 pages at 300
words per page).
Read the rest of this Biography with our Arthur Conan Doyle, Sir Access Pass.
