Sir Arthur's will was published for the first time in a magazine. The Adventures of Sir Arthur When was Arthur Conan Doyle born?

... On July 13, 1930, in the Royal Albert Hall in London, in the presence of eight thousand people, a memorial service was held for Arthur Conan Doyle, who died a few days ago. In the front row sat Sir Arthur's widow Lady Jean, and across the chair from her was their son Denis. The space between them remained free and was intended for... Conan Doyle.

"Ladies and gentlemen! I ask everyone to stand up! - sounded under the arches of the chest hall low voice medium Estelle Roberts. “I see Sir Arthur entering the hall at this very moment!” There was wild applause. Roberts instantly stopped them with a warning movement of her hand: “Now Sir Arthur sits down in a chair next to his wife Lady Jean. ABOUT! He asks me to convey a message for Lady Jean!” Estelle Roberts approached the woman and whispered something in her ear. She smiled with satisfaction, then rose from her seat and walked to the front of the stage. The crowd gave her a standing ovation. Dark-haired, in a strict black suit and mourning hat, Conan Doyle's widow stood very straight, and dignity and confidence ran through the entire figure of this fifty-eight-year-old woman.

“Ladies and gentlemen, Sir Arthur would like to present to your attention an experiment,” she said slowly and solemnly. - Before leaving our world, he gave me this envelope, sealed with his personal seal. - Lady Jean showed it to the public so that everyone could make sure that the red family seal was not broken. “And now, gentlemen, the spirit of Sir Arthur will dictate the contents of his message to Estelle, and you and I will check whether it is correct.”

Estelle Roberts stood in front of an empty chair and nodded her head. Then, standing next to Lady Jean, she said to the audience:

The text of the letter is as follows: “I have defeated you, gentlemen, unbelievers! Death does not exist, as I warned. See you soon!"

Lady Jean opened the envelope: on a piece of paper were exactly these words.

... Arthur Conan Doyle always acted contrary to what was expected of him. In addition, he was distinguished by a catastrophic inability to put up with the monotony of so-called everyday life. Even given name- Arthur Doyle - seemed too boring to him, and, having matured, he began to use his middle name Conan as part of his surname. Perhaps as a child, Arthur’s mother “overfed” him with romantic stories. Thanks to Mary Doyle's nightly stories about travelers, noble aristocrats and loyal knights, Arthur somehow forgot that neither he nor his sisters and brother had such beautiful toys, like the neighbors' children, that he is wearing mended pants, and a leg is swaying at their dining table. He did not delve into the meaning of the terrible word “loser”, which his relatives called his stooped, sad father, who vegetated in some tiny position in a government office in the capital of Scotland, Edinburgh. The boy did not understand the humiliation of comparing his father with his brothers Charles and Richard Doyle, who made excellent careers in London (one is a brilliant scientist, the other is a fashionable illustrator).

Having left the closed educational institution of the Jesuit brothers at the age of 17, a harsh and merciless school where the main means of education was the whip, Arthur burned with impatience to quickly experience those incredible adventures, about which his mother talked so much and he himself read from his favorites Maine Reed, Jules Verne and Walter Scott. But it turned out that the mother, completely exhausted by the household, lack of money and numerous children, had by no means romantic views for the future of her eldest son. She wanted Arthur to acquire a respectable profession: his mother was afraid that he would suffer the same fate as his father, a worthless drunken slacker who quit his job and for no apparent reason imagined himself to be an artist. Suppressing a surge of irritation, Arthur entered the medical faculty of the University of Edinburgh.

But Mary Doyle had to learn the obstinacy of her son’s character quite soon - in the fall of 1880, without completing the course, Arthur signed up as a doctor on the whaling ship Nadezhda, heading towards Greenland. The crew consisted of fifty sailors - Scots and Irish: tall, bearded and extremely ferocious in appearance. The newcomer, as usual, had to be “checked”, but the “youngster” was clearly ready for this. Before the ship had time to set out to sea, Arthur was already grappling with the ship's cook Jack Lamb on deck, whose agility a panther would envy. They fought selflessly and fiercely, uttering war cries from time to time. The crew watched the battle with interest, and when Arthur pressed Lamb to the boards, victoriously squeezing his throat, the sailors cheered: the new doctor was recognized as one of their own. Arthur later admitted to them that, in preparing himself for the life of a traveler, he had the foresight to take boxing lessons at a Jesuit school.

Soon, Captain John Gray doubled the ship's doctor's salary - he hunted seals and whales, in no way inferior in dexterity and dexterity to experienced sailors. Doyle risked his life with astonishing fearlessness and once actually almost died when he fell off an ice floe into the sea. Arthur was saved only by the fact that he managed to grab the fin of a dead seal and his comrades quickly lifted him onto the ship. Whale hunting was an even more dangerous, cruel and exhausting activity. Even when the whale was finally dragged onto the deck with great difficulty, the sea giant was still desperately fighting for life; one blow of his fin could cut a man in half, and once Conan Doyle almost got such a blow, but he last moment managed to dodge with incomprehensible, almost monkey-like agility.

Under this clear sky, among the cold Arctic waters illuminated by the whitish sun, twenty-year-old Conan Doyle fully realized himself as a man who had confirmed his right to that risky, full of dangers and adventurous life, which, from his point of view, could only be considered life.

Returning from his first expedition and barely passing the exam for a doctor’s degree, a year later he was recruited onto the Mayumba merchant ship, sailing to the African continent. The impressions from this journey did not let go of Conan Doyle until the end of his life, and many years later they would encourage him to create science fiction novels. Arthur finally saw with his own eyes what he had previously only read about in books: ancient forests with their mighty trees and branches forming a continuous green tent; monstrous creeping vines, bright orchids, lichen, golden allamanda; in the forests lurked a whole world of iridescent snakes, monkeys, strange birds - blue, violet, purple; crystal pure water The rivers and lakes were teeming with fish of all colors and sizes. Conan Doyle had a chance to hunt crocodiles, several times he almost became prey to a shark, but his contempt for death and some special innate luck helped him emerge unharmed even from the mortally dangerous waters of the African coast.

These two exotic expeditions only strengthened young man a passion for everything unusual, and therefore, when, due to material considerations, he had to start organizing his medical career, the feeling he experienced was very similar to disgust. Reluctantly, Conan Doyle began practicing in the small town of Portsmouth, where life was much cheaper than in Edinburgh. The savings were barely enough to buy a table and chair for the patient’s office. In his so-called bedroom, in the corner there was only a straw mattress on which Arthur slept, wrapped in his coat. The aspiring doctor lived on a shilling a day, quit smoking to save money, and bought food in the cheapest port shops.

However, luck did not betray him this time either: contrary to all forecasts, his medical practice began to grow. And now comfortable armchairs, carved tables, large oval mirrors, curtains on the windows and even a housekeeper appeared in the house. Somehow, naturally, just as he acquired new furniture, Arthur also acquired a wife - his patient’s twenty-seven-year-old sister, Louise Hawkins. He was not at all blazing with an insane passion for Louise; it was just that the residents of the provincial town had much more confidence in the married doctor. In the spring of 1886, when they got married, an old woman who happened to be in the church, looking at the young couple, muttered under her breath: “Well, I chose a wife! Such a buffalo - such a mouse. It will completely torture her!” They tried to politely lead the old lady out, but her observations were spot on: Louise was tiny, with a kind, round, weak-willed face and submissive eyes, and Arthur, almost two meters tall, muscular, with large features faces and militantly curled mustaches.

How could Conan Doyle tell anyone that when he sees patients, he languishes like a tiger in a cage, that a small room with a low ceiling, where he has to spend ten hours a day, strangles him like a noose around his neck, that the society of respectable doctors mediocre acts on him as a sleeping pill. He desperately wanted to be free. And again, as in childhood, his freedom-loving nature found refuge in fantasy: this time Conan Doyle plunged headlong into reading detective stories, mostly weak imitations of Dickens and E. Poe. And one day, for fun and entertainment, Conan Doyle tried to write a detective story himself. The main character in this story was detective Sherlock Holmes, whose name Conan Doyle borrowed from a doctor he knew. One of the Portsmouth magazines published a story and ordered a new one - with the same hero. Arthur wrote. Then again and again. When he had accumulated a decent number of stories, he realized that writing gave him almost as much pleasure as traveling.

May 4, 1891 became the day of his rebirth in the literal and figurative sense of the word. For several hours, Arthur, in a linen shirt soaked with sweat, tossed around the bed in a painful fever. Louise sat quietly by his bedside, crying and praying: she knew that her husband was between life and death. Arthur had a severe form of influenza, and life-saving antibiotics had not yet been invented. Suddenly he became quiet, then the patient’s face cleared up, and a mischievous smile lit up him. Arthur reached out, took the handkerchief lying next to his pillow and, with a weak hand, threw it several times towards the ceiling. "It's decided!" - He said in a weak voice, but somehow very confidently. Louise decided that it was about recovery. The patient tossed the handkerchief several more times in a kind of childish delight. “Don't wear a tweed jacket. Don't accept anyone. Don’t prescribe pills,” he muttered. And I told my wife about what I had just the decision taken: He's quitting medicine and will write. Louise looked at him in silent amazement - she knew her husband very little. “Pack your things! - commanded Conan Doyle, who was near death an hour ago. “We are moving to the capital.”

The publishers of the London magazine Strand Magazine, having read the stories about Sherlock Holmes, quickly appreciated what a treasure they had in their hands. A contract was immediately signed with the aspiring author, and he was given an impressive advance. Conan Doyle rejoiced: if he remained a doctor, he wouldn’t earn that kind of money in five years! In a comfortable apartment in the heart of London, he reveled in writing more and more stories about the cunning detective. He took some stories from crime chronicles, others were suggested to him by friends. Literary London reacted very favorably to the newly minted fellow writer. Jerome K. Jerome and Peter Pan creator James Matthew Barrie became close friends. Conan Doyle did not have to achieve fame; it was enough just to quietly beckon it with his finger. The circulation of the magazine with his name on the cover increased fivefold.

From now on, the nightly entertainment of Arthur's family - by that time he had already had a daughter and a son - was reading countless letters that readers addressed to Sherlock Holmes, considering him real face. Often, gifts for the detective came along with the messages: pipe cleaners, violin strings, tobacco. One day, someone even thought of sending cocaine, which the famous detective was known to love to snort. Hundreds of women asked whether Mr. Holmes or Dr. Watson needed a housekeeper. Conan Doyle became seriously worried when checks for large sums of money began to be found in letters; people sent Holmes fees, persuading him to take on solving some case.

Be that as it may, fate did not at all intend to give Arthur Conan Doyle time to revel in fame and prosperity for too long. Two dramatic events that occurred in one year almost completely changed the writer. Firstly, his wife Louise was diagnosed with tuberculosis in a very advanced form. If she had contacted doctors earlier, there would have been hope for recovery. The diagnosis left Arthur flushed with shame. How did he, the doctor, miss such obvious, obvious symptoms?! He dragged his wife along with him like a comfortable chair, not paying attention to her cough, either to Switzerland because he wanted to go ice skating, or to Norway to go skiing... Is Louise really doomed to death now only because of his criminal frivolity? ?

The second misfortune that befell Conan Doyle turned out to be even worse: in October of the same year, his father Charles Doyle died. He died not as a gentleman should - in his own bed, surrounded by family and care, but shamefully and humiliatingly - in a mental hospital, where his wife Mary hid him, convinced that her husband had developed schizophrenia due to alcoholism: he allegedly began to hear “voices.” Arthur then reacted favorably to this decision - he was always ashamed of his father and wanted him to disappear from their lives forever. Having become a more or less famous writer and caring about his reputation, he all the more preferred not to remember his parent. After his death, his mother asked Arthur to take Charles' personal belongings from the hospital. And then, quite by accident, Conan Doyle discovered a diary in his father’s nightstand, which the unfortunate man kept, as it turned out, almost until his death.

None of the books he had read before made such an impression on Conan Doyle as these notes. Weak-willed, poisoned by an addiction to alcohol, but at the same time absolutely sane, with a clear mind and keen observation, the person bitterly complained: what kind of humane society is this and what kind of experienced doctors are they who are unable or unwilling to distinguish alcoholism from schizophrenia? What kind of relatives are these who are trying to quickly get rid of a lost person? The diary also contained many talented drawings. On one of the pages, Doyle was amazed to discover his father’s address to him, Arthur. Appealing to his education and knowledge in the field of medicine, Charles wrote that he would like to reveal to his son one “great secret”: from his own experience he learned that the soul continues to live after death - he allegedly managed to get into contact with his deceased parents, who and reported this to their son. The diary contained calls to “explore this sacred region of human consciousness,” so that mystically sensitive people would no longer be considered incurable schizophrenics. And this was written by his father?! The father whom Arthur imagined as a degraded, half-educated alcoholic, unable to put two words together? Reading this peculiar will, Conan Doyle felt terrible excitement: after all, back in Portsmouth, he had become interested in spiritualism, but did not allow himself to get carried away, because he believed that perhaps hereditary schizophrenia was simply speaking in him...

The illness of his wife, the death of his father and the reading of this diary caused a cruel storm of feelings in Arthur’s soul. But he dared to consider himself a knight without fear or reproach! Of course, Louise was immediately sent to the best pulmonary sanatorium in Davos, and Arthur spared no expense to alleviate her fate (thanks to his care, she would live for another thirteen years.) But in order to make amends to her father, the matter things were more complicated. And Conan Doyle, with the passion with which he, however, took on any task, attacked the study of spiritualist literature.

The anger at himself that raged in him resulted in a very natural impulse from a psychological point of view - in the desire to deal with his “alter ego” - Sherlock Holmes and thus commit symbolic suicide. Arthur no longer read the letters addressed to the detective. Now they infuriated him - without opening them, he furiously threw them wherever he had to: into the fireplace, out the window, into the trash can. Fame suddenly appeared to him in a completely different light: he was just a popular scribbler of cheap detective stories! The world doesn't care that he's been working on serious historical novels for several years now!

In December 1893, the Strand Store published Holmes's Last Case, in which the famous detective was sent to the next world by the ruthless hand of his creator. That same month, twenty thousand people canceled their subscription to the magazine. Huge crowds of people gathered around the editorial office every day with the slogans “Give us back Holmes!” In Conan Doyle's house in Norwood, telephone calls were constantly heard with direct threats: if Sherlock Holmes was not resurrected from the dead, his heartless creator would soon go after him.

It is likely that Conan Doyle would not mind sharing the fate of his character: his life fell apart as if House of cards- the children were now raised by relatives, and the wife, who had turned from a plump, ruddy creature into a pale ghost with a tortured smile wandering on her lips, spent her days in a chair at the Davos sanatorium.

Visiting Louise, Conan Doyle avoided looking her in the eyes and, holding her thin hand in his, thought that he would rather die himself than watch this terrible, painful decline. It was during this period that he began to go on very dangerous mountaineering expeditions for a long time, then went to Egypt for many months. With a group of desperate daredevils, Doyle set off on a very risky search for an ancient Coptic monastery. They walked 80 kilometers through the scorched desert; at some point, even the local guides abandoned them, and Conan Doyle personally led the expedition.

However, the main test awaited Conan Doyle not among the steep mountain cliffs and waterless deserts. With a calm, graceful step, it approached Arthur in the form of twenty-four-year-old Scot Jean Leckie, and at the sight of this unexpected misfortune with lush dark hair and a swan neck, Conan Doyle froze in his chest, as if he were standing over an abyss on a dangerous pass, and was not in London, on a boring dinner party with his publisher.

Jean laughed at some of his jokes - sincerely, carefree. Arthur, who had almost forgotten how to smile, heard something very, very warm, even familiar, in her laughter, and for no reason he laughed in response. Then, reaching out to hand her a dish, he dumped the contents onto the snow-white tablecloth. And, looking into Jean’s cheerful eyes, he laughed again. The diagnosis was very clear: love at first sight. And it’s mutual.

Having realized what had happened to him, Conan Doyle did not experience any elation, nor simply joy or relief, as one might expect - only endless despair, like an ocean.

“You must be very clear,” he told Jean, emphasizing every word, “that I will never leave Louise. And under no circumstances will I divorce her. As long as she lives, I cannot belong to you in any sense. Not at all, do you understand me?” “Yes, but I will never marry anyone but you,” came the equally definite answer.

What, in fact, prevented them from simply becoming lovers? London's literary bohemia would hardly have condemned their relationship: many writers, including Dickens and Wells, had affairs on the side. But Conan Doyle did not consider himself a bohemian and still considered himself a gentleman. A man of honor, he said, is one who, choosing between feeling and duty, will without hesitation give preference to the latter. And Conan Doyle already reproached himself for too many things.

The outbreak of the Boer War was a real deliverance for the writer - both from frequent visits to the sanatorium, where Louise was quietly fading away in a room that smelled of medicine, and from Jean’s attentive, understanding eyes. Wasting no time, Conan Doyle volunteered for the front. He was not at all a militarist and a colonist, like, say, Kipling; Arthur simply considered himself a patriot, and his duty as a doctor called him to be on the front line. As was his wont, he invariably found himself in the hottest spots and in the line of fire; For his participation in this war, Edward VII granted him the title "Sir".

After the war, Conan Doyle had to think about making money again - inflation and the greatly increased costs of Louise's treatment made themselves felt. Only one character brought him reliable money - Sherlock Holmes. Neither his historical nor social novels enjoyed particular success with the public. For the resurrection of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur was promised an unprecedented sum at that time - 100 pounds sterling for 1000 words. Conan Doyle was confused: he did not have the slightest idea how to plausibly bring this son of a bitch Holmes back from the other world. Jean unexpectedly came up with a solution.

One day he invited her for a ride in a car. There were still few cars back then, and his proposal seemed very exotic to the girl, promising a lot of thrills. In Birmingham they solemnly sat down in the brand new Wolseley. Conan Doyle, dressed as expected in a long raincoat, cap and goggles, thought it unnecessary to inform his companion that he had never tried to drive a car. For a debutant, he coped with the task quite dashingly, although Jean screamed every time the car bounced on the bumpy road. Trying to distract her, Arthur began to complain that he did not know how to resurrect Holmes. And suddenly Jean said: “Stop! I think I have an idea!” Out of surprise, Conan Doyle pressed not on the brake - that would have been half the problem - but on the gas, and the car crashed into a cart trailing ahead. A second later, Arthur and Jean had to take cover from a hail of unexpected blows: turnips fell from the cart onto them. “Why don’t you say what you came up with?” - Conan Doyle asked impatiently, repelling the turnip attack. “Baritsu,” Jin said solemnly and mysteriously. - Baritsu...”

Conan Doyle really took advantage of Jean's advice: now everyone knows how Holmes, thanks to his mastery of baritsu, that is, Japanese wrestling techniques, managed to avoid death by only faking it.

And then the most terrible night in Conan Doyle’s life happened - the night of July 4, 1906, when Louise was dying. This happened in London, in their home in the suburb of Norwood. Louise was desperately, insanely afraid of death. She lay on the sheets with a white waxen face, clutching her husband's hand, as if she wanted to take him with her. He watched her agony with horror and, while his wife was still conscious, hastily, afraid of not being in time and regretting that he had not thought of doing this earlier, he told Louise about what he had learned from his father’s diary and the books he had read: that there is no death, that how As soon as she leaves, he will definitely contact her about how much he needs her there. “Promise me...” whispered her blue lips. But Louise didn’t have time to say what exactly to promise.

A year after the death of his wife, Conan Doyle married Jean Leckie. In total, she waited for him for ten years. From the outside, their family life might seem fabulously idyllic: three charming children, a beautiful house in one of the most picturesque places in Sussex, wealth, fame. The family's income was now brought not only by the faithful Holmes - Conan Doyle's plays were shown in the theater, film companies bought the rights to film adaptations of his works; Some of his science fiction novels were also successful, especially The Lost World. Conan Doyle was not just a famous writer - he became a national treasure of England.

However, this arranged, pastoral life somehow gradually began to collapse, like a sandy embankment that is washed away by water. To everyone who knew Sir Arthur, little by little it began to seem that the famous writer... was simply going crazy. The first confusion was caused by his public speech in 1917, in which Conan Doyle in harsh terms renounced Catholicism, announced his official conversion to the “spiritualist religion,” saying that he had finally received “indisputable proof” that he was right.

... A strange company gathered in a tightly curtained room at the Ambassador Hotel in Atlantic City: Conan Doyle, his wife Jean and the famous illusionist Harry Houdini. The latter was extremely interested in spiritualism, especially since his outstanding abilities were often attributed to contact with otherworldly forces. Jean was to be the medium. Recently she has discovered the ability to write automatically.

Jean in a tight dark dress sat away from the men in a chair. Suddenly her eyes closed and her body began to shake in some strange convulsions - she fell into a trance. A little later, Jean reported that she managed to get into contact with the spirit of Kingsley, Conan Doyle’s son from Louise, who had recently died on the front of the First World War. “Is it possible to find out something from him about my late mother?” - Houdini asked with difficulty overcoming his excitement. “Ask questions,” Conan Doyle responded dully. “First of all, ask why my mother left such a strange will?” The answer he received shocked Houdini so much that he, knocking over his chair, ran headlong out of the room. Sir Arthur and Jean, as if nothing had happened, continued communicating with Kingsley. It was this session, according to Conan Doyle, that provided him with the “indisputable evidence” that he had been looking for for so many years. However, less than a month later, in the New York Sun, Houdini subjected spiritualism to the most derogatory criticism, calling Jean a charlatan and Conan Doyle at the very least a gullible dupe.

It was this opinion about the writer that became increasingly widespread in society. By the mid-20s, he became a universal laughing stock, and most of his friends gradually turned away from him. Both Jerome K. Jerome and James Barry were no longer above throwing mud at both Sir Arthur and his beliefs. But, as always, Conan Doyle went against everyone. Until 1927, he continued to write stories about Sherlock Holmes, but with one single goal - to earn money for his endless propaganda trips. In countless cities in Europe and America where he performs, thousands of people gather to watch him. Those who see him for the first time let out a sigh of disappointment when this heavyset, gray-haired man with an absurdly drooping mustache climbs onto the stage - he does not look a bit like the Sherlock Holmes that ordinary people expected to see. There is neither aristocratic thinness nor sophistication in him, his voice is devoid of restrained ironic modulations. After listening to his excited, hoarse speech for a while, the audience begins to whistle, hoot, and stomp their feet.

The only one who always supports Sir Arthur in everything is his wife. In the spring of 1930, seventy-one-year-old Conan Doyle, calling Jean into his office and carefully closing the doors, solemnly announced that he was going to tell her the most important news of his life. “I learned that I will leave this world on July 7th. Please make all necessary preparations." Jean, unlike poor Louise, knew her husband well and did not ask a single unnecessary question.

At the end of June, Conan Doyle had his first heart attack. A day later, ignoring the pain in his heart, he gave a farewell lecture to a huge crowd at London's Queens Hall.

On the night of July 7, neither he nor Jin slept a wink for a minute - they talked about something for a long time, then just sat holding hands. Conan Doyle was very pale, but cheerful and absolutely calm. At seven o'clock in the morning he asked Jean to open all the windows. At half past eight in the morning he had another heart attack. Having come to his senses a little, he asked his wife to help him move to a chair in front of the window. “I don’t want to die in bed,” he calmly told Jean. “Maybe I’ll have time to admire the scenery a little one last time.” At about eight o'clock in the morning, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle quietly and imperceptibly crossed the border, as he himself liked to put it, between manifested and unmanifested existence, and his gaze was fixed on the lush green plains that he always loved so much, stretching beyond the horizon...

Name: Arthur Conan Doyle

Age: 71 years old

Place of Birth: Edinburgh, Scotland

A place of death: Crowborough, Sussex, UK

Activity: English writer

Family status: was married

Arthur Conan Doyle - biography

Arthur Conan Doyle created Sherlock Holmes, the greatest detective who has ever existed in literature. And then all his life he unsuccessfully tried to get out of the shadow of his hero.

Who is Arthur Conan Doyle for us? Author of The Tales of Sherlock Holmes, of course. Who else? Conan Doyle’s contemporary and colleague Gilbert Keith Chesterton demanded that a monument to Sherlock Holmes be erected in London: “The hero of Mr. Conan Doyle is perhaps the first literary character since Dickens who entered popular life and language, becoming on a par with John Bull " The monument to Sherlock Holmes was opened in London, and in Meiringen, Switzerland, not far from the Reichenbach Falls, and even in Moscow.

Arthur Conan Doyle himself was unlikely to react to this with enthusiasm. The writer did not consider stories and stories about a detective to be his best, much less his main works in his literary biography. He was burdened by the fame of his hero largely because from a human point of view he had little sympathy for Holmes. Conan Doyle valued nobility in people above all else. He was raised this way by his mother, Irishwoman Mary Foyle, who came from a very ancient aristocratic family. True, to 19th century the Foyle family was completely ruined, so all Mary could do was tell her son about past glory and teach him to distinguish the coats of arms of families related to their family.

Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle, born on May 22, 1859, into a family of doctors in Edinburgh, the ancient capital of Scotland, had the right to be proud of an aristocratic origin through his father, Charles Altamont Doyle. True, Arthur always treated his father with compassion rather than pride. In his biography, he mentioned the cruelty of fate, which placed this “man with a sensitive soul in conditions that neither his age nor his nature were ready to withstand.”

If we speak without lyrics, then Charles Doyle was an unlucky, although perhaps talented artist. In any case, he was in demand as an illustrator, but not enough to feed his rapidly growing family and provide his aristocratic wife and children with a decent standard of living. He suffered from unfulfilled ambitions and drank more and more every year. His older brothers, who were successful in business, despised him. Arthur's grandfather, graphic artist John Doyle, helped his son, but this help was not enough, and besides, Charles Doyle considered the very fact that he was in need humiliating.

With age, Charles turned into an embittered, aggressive person suffering from bouts of uncontrollable rage, and Mary Doyle at times feared for the children so much that she handed Arthur over to be raised in the prosperous and wealthy home of her friend Mary Barton. She visited her son often, and the two Marys joined forces to turn the boy into a model gentleman. And they both encouraged Arthur in his passion for reading.

True, young Arthur Doyle clearly preferred Mine Reed’s novels about the adventures of American settlers and Indians to the chivalric novels of Walter Scott, but since he read quickly and a lot, simply devouring books, he found time for all the authors of the adventure genre. “I don’t know a joy so complete and selfless,” he recalled, “as that experienced by a child who snatches time from lessons and huddles in a corner with a book, knowing that no one will disturb him in the next hour.”

Arthur Conan Doyle wrote his first book in his biography at the age of six and illustrated it himself. It was called “The Traveler and the Tiger.” Alas, the book turned out to be short because the tiger ate the traveler immediately after the meeting. And Arthur did not find a way to bring the hero back to life. “It is very easy to put people in difficult situations, but it is much more difficult to get them out of these situations” - he remembered this rule throughout his long creative life.

Alas, the happy childhood did not last long. At the age of eight, Arthur was returned to his family and sent to school. “At home we led a spartan lifestyle,” he later wrote, “and at Edinburgh school, where our young existence was poisoned by an old-school teacher waving a belt, it was even worse. My comrades were rude boys, and I myself became the same.”

What Arthur hated most was mathematics. And most often it was the mathematics teachers who flogged him - in all the schools where he studied. When the great detective's worst enemy appeared in the stories about Sherlock Holmes - the criminal genius James Moriarty - Arthur made the villain not just anyone, but a mathematics professor.

Rich relatives on his father's side followed Arthur's successes. Seeing that the Edinburgh school was not bringing any benefit to the boy, they sent him to study at Stonyhurst, an expensive and prestigious institution under the auspices of the Jesuit Order. Alas, in this school, children were also subjected to corporal punishment. But the training there was really conducted at a good level, and Arthur could devote a lot of time to literature. The first fans of his work also appeared. Classmates, eagerly awaiting new chapters of his adventure novels, often solved mathematics problems for the young writer.

Arthur Conan Doyle dreamed of becoming a writer. But he didn’t believe that writing could be a profitable profession. Therefore, he had to choose from what was offered to him: his father’s rich relatives wanted him to study to become a lawyer, his mother wanted him to become a doctor. Arthur preferred his mother's choice. He loved her very much. And he regretted it. After his father finally lost his mind and ended up in a mental hospital, Mary Doyle had to rent out rooms for gentlemen and hire table workers - the only way she could feed her children.

In October 1876, Arthur Doyle was enrolled in the first year of medical school at the University of Edinburgh. During his studies, Arthur met and even became friends with many young men who were passionate about writing. But his closest friend, who had a huge influence on Arthur Doyle, was one of his teachers, Dr. Joseph Bell. He was a brilliant man, fantastically observant, and able to use logic to easily identify both lies and errors.

Sherlock Holmes' deductive method is actually Bell's method. Arthur adored the doctor and kept his portrait on the mantel all his life. Many years after graduating from university, in May 1892, already being famous writer, Arthur Conan Doyle wrote to a friend: “My dear Bell, It is to you that I owe my Sherlock Holmes, and although I have had the opportunity to imagine him in all sorts of dramatic circumstances, I doubt that his analytical skills are superior to your skills, which I have had the opportunity to observe. Based on your deduction, observation and logical deductions, I tried to create a character that will bring them to the maximum, and I am very glad that you were satisfied with the result, because you have the right to be the harshest of critics.”

Unfortunately, while studying at the university, Arthur had no opportunities for writing. He constantly had to work part-time to help his mother and sisters, either as a pharmacist or as a doctor’s assistant. Need usually hardens people, but in the case of Arthur Doyle, the chivalrous nature always won.

Relatives recalled how one day his neighbor, Herr Gleivitz, a scientist of European renown, who had been forced to leave Germany for political reasons and was now desperately in poverty, came to see him. That day his wife fell ill, and in desperation he asked his friends to lend him money. Arthur also did not have cash, but he immediately took a watch with a chain from his pocket and offered to pawn it. He simply could not leave a person in trouble. For him, this was the only possible action in that situation.

The first publication, which brought him a fee - as much as three guineas, took place in 1879, when he sold the story “The Secret of the Sasas Valley” in Chamber's Journal. Although the aspiring author was upset that the story was greatly abridged, he wrote a few more and sent it out various magazines. Actually, this is how the creative biography of the writer Arthur Conan Doyle began, although at that time he saw his future connected exclusively with medicine.

In the spring of 1880, Arthur received permission from the university to undergo an internship on the whaling ship Nadezhda, which set off for the shores of Greenland. They didn’t pay much, but there was no other opportunity to get a job in the future in the specialty: to get a position as a doctor in a hospital, you needed patronage, to open a private practice - money. After graduating from university, Arthur was offered the position of ship's doctor on the Mayumba steamer, and he happily accepted.

But as much as the Arctic fascinated him, Africa seemed just as disgusting. What did he have to endure during the voyage! “Everything is fine with me, but I had African fever, I was almost swallowed by a shark, and to top it all off, there was a fire on the Mayumba on the way between the island of Madeira and England,” he wrote to his mother from the next port.

Returning home, Doyle, with the permission of his family, spent all his ship's salary to open a doctor's office. It cost £40 per annum. Patients were reluctant to go to a little-known doctor. Arthur inevitably devoted a lot of time to literature. He wrote stories one after another, and it would seem that this is where he should come to his senses and forget about medicine... But his mother dreamed of seeing him as a doctor. And over time, patients fell in love with the delicate and attentive Doctor Doyle.

In the early spring of 1885, Arthur's friend and neighbor, Dr. Pike, invited Dr. Doyle to consult on the illness of fifteen-year-old Jack Hawkins: the teenager had suffered meningitis and was now experiencing terrifying seizures several times a day. Jack lived with his widowed mother and 27-year-old sister in a rented apartment, the owner of which demanded that the apartment be vacated immediately because Jack was disturbing the neighbors. The situation was aggravated by the fact that the patient was hopeless: it was unlikely that he would have lasted even a few weeks... Dr. Pike simply did not dare to tell the grief-stricken women about this himself and wanted to shift the burden of the last explanation onto his young colleague.

But he was simply shocked by the incredible decision that Arthur made. Having met the patient’s mother and his sister, the tender and vulnerable Louise, Arthur Conan Doyle was imbued with such compassion for their grief that he offered to move Jack to his apartment so that the boy would be under constant medical supervision. This cost Arthur several sleepless nights, after which he had to work during the day. And what’s really bad is that when Jack died, everyone saw the coffin being taken out of Doyle’s house.

Bad rumors spread about the young doctor, but Doyle did not seem to notice anything: the warm gratitude of the boy’s sister grew into ardent love. Arthur already had several unsuccessful short novels, but not a single girl seemed to him as close to the ideal of a beautiful lady from a chivalric romance as this tremulous young lady, who decided to get engaged to him already in April 1885, without waiting for the end of the period of mourning for her brother .

Even though Tui, as Arthur called his wife, was not a bright personality, she managed to provide her husband with home comfort and completely rid him of everyday problems. Doyle suddenly had a huge amount of time freed up, which he spent on writing. The more he wrote, the better it turned out. In 1887, his first story about Sherlock Holmes, “A Study in Scarlet,” was published, which immediately brought real success to the author. Then Arthur was happy...

He explained his success by the fact that, thanks to a lucrative agreement with the magazine, Doyle finally stopped needing money and could write only those stories that were interesting to him. But he had no intention of writing only about Sherlock Holmes. He wanted to write serious historical novels, and he created them - one after another, but they never had the same reader success as the stories about the brilliant detective... Readers demanded from him Holmes and only Holmes.

The story “A Scandal in Bohemia,” in which Doyle, at the request of readers, told about Holmes’s love, turned out to be the last straw - the story turned out to be tortured. Arthur wrote frankly to his teacher Bell: “Holmes is as cold as Babbage’s Analytical Engine and has the same chances of finding love.” Arthur Conan Doyle planned to beat his hero until the hero destroyed him. The first time he mentioned this was in a letter to his mother: “I am thinking about finally finishing off Holmes and getting rid of him, because he is distracting me from more worthwhile matters.” To this mother replied: “You can’t! Don't you dare! In no case!"

And yet Arthur did it, writing the story "Holmes' Last Case." After Sherlock Holmes, having fought the final battle with Professor Moriarty, fell into the Reichenbach Falls, all of England was plunged into grief. "You scoundrel!" - this is how many letters to Doyle began. Nevertheless, Arthur felt relieved - he was no longer, as his readers called him, “the literary agent of Sherlock Holmes.”

Soon Tui bore him a daughter, Mary, and then a son, Kingsley. Childbirth was difficult for her, but, like a true Victorian lady, she hid her pain from her husband as much as she could. He, passionate about creativity and communication with fellow writers, did not immediately notice that something was wrong with his meek wife. And when he noticed, he almost burned with shame: he, the doctor, did not see the obvious - progressive tuberculosis of the lungs and bones in his own wife. Arthur gave up everything to help Tui. He took her to the Alps for two years, where Tui became so strong that there was hope for her recovery. The couple returned to England, where Arthur Conan Doyle...fell in love with young Jean Leckie.

It would seem that his soul was already shrouded in the snowy veil of age, but from under the snow a primrose emerged - this poetic image Together with a snowdrop, Arthur presented Leckie to the lovely young Jean a year after their first meeting, on March 15, 1898.

Jean was very beautiful: contemporaries claimed that not a single photograph conveyed the charm of her finely drawn face, large green eyes, both insightful and sad... She had luxurious wavy dark brown hair and a swan neck, smoothly turning into sloping shoulders: Conan Doyle was crazy about the beauty of her neck, but for many years he did not dare to kiss her.

In Jean, Arthur also found those qualities that he lacked in Tui: a sharp mind, a love of reading, education, and the ability to hold a conversation. Jean was a passionate person, but rather reserved. Most of all, she was afraid of gossip... And for her sake, as well as for the sake of Tuya, Arthur Conan Doyle preferred not to talk about his new love even with those closest to you, vaguely explaining: “There are feelings too personal, too deep to be expressed in words.”

In December 1899, when the Boer War began, Arthur Conan Doyle suddenly decided to volunteer for the front. Biographers believe that in this way he tried to force himself to forget Jean. The medical commission rejected his candidacy due to his age and health, but no one could stop him from going to the front as a military doctor. However, it was impossible to forget about Jean Leki. Pierre Norton, a French scholar of the life and work of Arthur Conan Doyle, wrote about his relationship with Jean:

“For almost ten years she was his mystical wife, and he was her faithful knight and her hero. Over the years, emotional tension arose between them, painful, but at the same time it became a test of the knightly spirit of Arthur Conan Doyle. Like no other of his contemporaries, he was suitable for this role and, perhaps, even desired it... A physical relationship with Jean would be for him not only a betrayal of his wife, but also an irreparable humiliation. He would have fallen in his own eyes and his life would have turned into a dirty affair.”

Arthur immediately told Jean that divorce was impossible in his circumstances, because the reason for divorce could be his wife’s betrayal, but certainly not cooling of feelings. Although, perhaps, he secretly thought about it. He wrote: “The family is not the basis of social life. The basis of social life is a happy family. But with our outdated divorce rules happy families and it doesn’t happen.” Subsequently, Conan Doyle became an active participant in the Union for the Reform of Divorce Laws. True, he defended the interests not of husbands, but of wives, insisting that in the event of a divorce, women received equal rights with men.

Nevertheless, Arthur resigned himself to fate and remained faithful until the end of Tuya’s life. He struggled with his passion for Jean and with the desire to change Tui and was proud of each successive victory: “I fight the forces of darkness with all my might and win.”

However, he introduced Jean to his mother, whom he still trusted in everything, and Mrs. Doyle not only approved of his friend, but even offered to accompany them on their joint trips to countryside: in the company of an elderly matron, a lady and a gentleman could spend time without violating the rules of decency. Mrs. Doyle, who herself suffered grief with her sick husband, fell in love with Jean so much that Mary gave Miss Leckie a family jewel - a bracelet that belonged to her beloved sister; Arthur's sister, Lottie, soon became friends with Jean. Even Conan Doyle's mother-in-law knew Jean and did not oppose her relationship with Arthur, since she was still grateful to him for the kindness shown to the dying Jack, and understood that any other man in his place would not have behaved so noblely, and certainly I definitely wouldn’t spare the feelings of my sick wife.

Only Tui remained in the introduction. “She is still dear to me, but now part of my life, previously free, is occupied,” Arthur wrote to his mother. - I feel nothing but respect and affection for Tui. For all our family life We have never quarreled, and in the future I also do not intend to hurt her.”

Unlike Tui, Jean was interested in Arthur's work, discussed plots with him and even wrote several paragraphs in his story. In a letter to his mother, Conan Doyle admitted that the plot of “The Empty House” was suggested to him by Jean. This story was included in the collection in which Doyle “reanimated” Holmes after his “death” at the Reichenbach Falls.

Arthur Conan Doyle held out for a long time: for almost eight years, readers waited for a new meeting with their favorite hero. Holmes's return had the effect of a bomb exploding. All over England they were talking only about the great detective. Rumors began to spread about a possible Holmes prototype. Robert Louis Stevenson was one of the first to guess about the prototype. “Isn’t this my old friend Joe Bell?” - he asked in a letter to Arthur. Soon journalists flocked to Edinburgh. Conan Doyle, just in case, warned Bell that now he “will be pestered with his crazy letters by fans who will need his help in rescuing unmarried aunts from the boarded-up attics where their villainous neighbors have locked them.”

Bell treated his first interviews with calm humor, although later the journalists began to annoy him. After Bell’s death, his friend Jessie Saxby was indignant: “This clever, unfeeling hunter of people, who hunts down criminals with the stubbornness of a hound, was not much like the good doctor, always taking pity on sinners and ready to help them.” Bella's daughter shared the same opinion, declaring: “My father was not at all like Sherlock Holmes. The detective was callous and harsh, but my father was kind and gentle.”

Indeed, with his habits and behavior, Bell did not at all resemble Sherlock Holmes, he kept his things in order and did not take drugs... But in appearance, tall, with an aquiline nose and graceful facial features, Bell looked like a great detective. In addition, fans of Arthur Conan Doyle simply wanted Sherlock Holmes to really exist. “Many readers consider Sherlock Holmes to be a real person, judging by the letters addressed to him that come to me with a request to give them to Holmes.

Watson also receives many letters in which readers ask him for the address or autograph of his brilliant friend, Arthur wrote to Joseph Bell with bitter irony. -When Holmes retired, several elderly ladies volunteered to help him with housework, and one even assured me that she was well versed in beekeeping and could “separate the queen from the swarm.” Many also suggest that Holmes investigate some family secret. Even I myself received an invitation to Poland, where I will be given whatever fee I wish. After thinking about it, I wished to stay at home.”

However, Arthur Conan Doyle did solve several cases. The most famous of them was the case of the Indian George Edalji, who lived with his family in the village of Great Whirley. The villagers did not like the overseas guest, and the poor fellow was bombarded with anonymous threatening letters. And when a series of mysterious crimes occurred in the area - someone was inflicting deep cuts on cows - suspicion first of all fell on a stranger. Edalji was accused not only of cruelty to animals, but also of allegedly writing letters to himself. The sentence was seven years of hard labor. But the convict did not lose heart and achieved a review of the case, so he was released after three years.

To clear his reputation, Edalji turned to Arthur Conan Doyle. Of course, because his Sherlock Holmes solved more complicated cases. Conan Doyle enthusiastically took up the investigation. Noticing how close Edalji brought the newspaper to his eyes when reading, Conan Doyle came to the conclusion that he was visually impaired. How, then, could he run through the fields at night and slaughter cows with a knife, especially since the fields were guarded by watchmen? The brown stains on his razor turned out not to be blood, but rust. A handwriting expert hired by Conan Doyle proved that the anonymous letters on Edalji were written in a different handwriting. Conan Doyle described his discoveries in a series of newspaper articles, and soon all suspicions were removed from Edalji.

However, participation in investigations, and attempts to stand for local elections in Edinburgh, and a passion for bodybuilding, which ended in a heart attack, and car racing, flying balloons and even on the first planes - all this was just a way to escape from reality: the slow dying of his wife, secret romance with Jean - all this weighed on him. And then Arthur Conan Doyle discovered spiritualism.

Arthur was interested in the supernatural in his youth: he was a member of the British Society for Psychical Research, which studied paranormal phenomena. Nevertheless, he was initially skeptical about communicating with spirits: “I will be glad to receive enlightenment from any source, I have little hope for spirits that speak through mediums. As far as I remember, they only spoke nonsense.” However, fellow spiritualist Alfred Drayson explained that in another world, as in the human world, there are many fools - they must go somewhere after death.

Surprisingly, Doyle’s passion for spiritualism brought him back to the church, in which he had become disillusioned during his years as a student at a Jesuit institution. Conan Doyle recalled: “I have no respect for the Old Testament, and no confidence that churches are so necessary... I wish to die as I lived, without the interference of clergy and in the state of that same peace that stems from honest actions in accordance with life principles."

All the more shocked was Conan Doyle's meeting with the spirit of a young girl who died in Melbourne. The spirit told him that he lived in a world consisting entirely of light and laughter, where there were neither rich nor poor. The inhabitants of this world do not experience physical pain, although they may experience anxiety and melancholy. However, they drive away sadness through spiritual and intellectual activities - for example, music. The picture that emerged was comforting.

Gradually, spiritualism became the center of the writer’s universe: “I realized that the knowledge given to me was intended not only for my consolation, but that God had given me the opportunity to tell the world what it so needed to hear.”

Once established in his views, Arthur Conan Doyle, with his characteristic stubbornness, stuck to them to the very end: “Suddenly I saw that the topic with which I had been flirting for so long was not simply the study of some force lying beyond the boundaries of science, but something great and capable of breaking down the walls between worlds, an undeniable message from without, giving hope and guiding light to humanity.”

On July 4, 1906, Arthur Conan Doyle was widowed. Tui died in his arms. For several months after her death, he was in a state of extreme depression: he was tormented by shame for the fact that last years it was as if he was waiting to get rid of his wife. But the very first meeting with Jean Leckie restored his hope for happiness. After waiting for the prescribed period of mourning, they got married on September 18, 1907.

Jean and Arthur lived very happily indeed. Everyone who knew them spoke about this. Jean gave birth to two sons, Denis and Adrian, and a daughter, who was named after her, Jean Jr. Arthur seemed to have found a second wind in literature. Jean Jr. said: “During dinner, my father often announced that he had an idea early in the morning and had been working on it all this time. Then he would read the draft to us and ask us to critique the story. My brothers and I rarely acted as critics, but my mother often gave him advice, and he always followed it.”

Jean's love helped Arthur endure the losses that the family suffered in the First world war: Doyle's son Kingsley, his younger brother, two cousins ​​and two nephews were killed at the front. He continued to draw consolation from spiritualism - he summoned the ghost of his son. He never evoked the spirit of his late wife...

In 1930, Arthur became seriously ill. But on March 15 - he never forgot the day when he first met Jean - Doyle got out of bed and went out into the garden to bring a snowdrop for his beloved. There, in the garden, Doyle was found: immobilized by a stroke, but clutching Jean’s favorite flower in his hands. Arthur Conan Doyle died on July 7, 1930, surrounded by his entire family. Last words which he said were addressed to his wife: “You are the best...”

On May 22, 1859, Sir Arthur Ignaceus Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh (Scotland), a famous English writer, author of numerous adventure, detective, historical, journalistic, science fiction and humorous works, creator of the brilliant detective Sherlock Holmes.
O

I gave birth to you, I will kill you! – Cossack ataman Taras Bulba says bitterly before shooting his son Andriy in the story of the same name by Nikolai Gogol. I think a similar thought more than once arose in the mind of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in relation to the hero he created - the unsurpassed master of deduction, Mr. Sherlock Holmes. Holmes's popularity in Great Britain reached such proportions that it overshadowed other aspects of the writer's literary activity - primarily historical novels, philosophical and journalistic works, to which he attached great importance. In the end, Sherlock Holmes got so fed up with his creator that Conan Doyle decided to send the detective to the next world. However, here the readers rebelled, and we had to urgently come up with plausible ways to resurrect the brilliant detective. However, sticking to the deductive method, let's go back to the beginning.
Arthur was the first son of seven surviving children of the Doyle family. Mother - Mary Foyley - came from an ancient Irish family, father - architect and artist Charles Doyle - was the youngest son of the first English cartoonist John Doyle. Unlike the brothers, who had a brilliant career (James was the chief artist of the humorous magazine Punch, Henry was the director of the National art gallery Ireland), Charles Doyle eked out a rather miserable existence, doing low-paid, routine paperwork in Edinburgh. There was little joy from such service, his whimsical fantastic watercolors did not sell, and the naturally melancholic artist fell into depression, became addicted to wine, and was sent to a hospital for alcoholics, and then to a mental asylum. The mother fought poverty as best she could, replacing the lack of material wealth with stories about the glorious past of their ancestors family tree. “The very atmosphere of the house breathed a chivalrous spirit. Conan Doyle learned to understand coats of arms much earlier than he became acquainted with the Latin conjugation,” one of the writer’s biographers later wrote. And he himself admitted: “A real love for literature, a penchant for writing, comes from my mother... Vivid images of the stories that she told me in early childhood completely replaced in my memory memories of specific events in my life of those years.”
Fortunately, there were rich relatives. It was with their money that nine-year-old Arthur was sent to England, to a closed school, and then to the Jesuit college in Stonyhurst. After 7 years of study in an atmosphere of severe discipline, severe corporal punishment and ascetic conditions, which somewhat brightened up sports and a passion for literature, the time came to choose a profession. Arthur decided to study medicine - the doctor’s mission was fully consistent with his ideas about the worthy performance of duty and the code of honor instilled by his mother. He will be guided by this code all his life, which will win the respect of his contemporaries.
At the University of Edinburgh, which Doyle chose following the example of the young doctor Brian Waller who lived in their house, he met the future writers Robert Louis Stevenson and James Barry. Among the professors of the Faculty of Medicine, Joseph Bell especially stood out. At Bell's lecture, students flocked in droves: deductive method, with the help of which the professor to the smallest details determined the profession, origin, personality characteristics and illness of the patient, seemed to them like something from the category of magic. This very popular surgeon at the university later served as the prototype for Sherlock Holmes for Conan Doyle. The writer transferred his sharp mind, eccentric manners, even Bell's physical features - an aquiline nose and close-set eyes - into the appearance of his brilliant detective.
To pay for his expensive education, Arthur constantly had to take on boring part-time jobs in a pharmacy. So, when, in his third year, a position as a ship’s surgeon on a whaling ship heading to Greenland came up, he didn’t think twice about it. True, he did not have to use his newly acquired medical skills, but Doyle was able to realize his long-standing romantic passion for travel, heroic adventures and mortal dangers - hunting whales along with the crew members. “I have become a grown man at 80 degrees north latitude,” he proudly told his mother, handing over the 50 pounds he had earned through dangerous labor. Later, impressions of the first Arctic voyage became the theme of the story “Captain of the Polar Star.” Two years later, Doyle again made a similar voyage - this time to the west coast of Africa on board the cargo ship Mayumba.
Having received a university diploma and a bachelor's degree in medicine in 1881, Conan Doyle began practicing medicine. The first joint experience of working with an unscrupulous partner was unsuccessful, and Arthur decided to open his own practice in Portsmouth.

At first, things went from bad to worse - patients were in no hurry to see a young doctor whom no one knew in the city. Then Doyle decided to become “visible” - he signed up for bowling and cricket clubs, helped organize the city football team, and joined the Portsmouth Literary and Scientific Society. Gradually, patients began to appear in his waiting room, and fees began to appear in his pocket. In 1885, Arthur married the sister of one of his patients. He was very worried that he could not help Jack Hawkins, who died of cerebral meningitis. Jack's thin, pale 27-year-old sister Louise evoked in him chivalrous feelings, a desire to protect and take under her wing. In addition, in a conservative provincial society, a married doctor is much more trustworthy. Doyle successfully combined medical practice and family life with writing. Actually, his baptism of fire in the literary field took place when he was still a medical student. The first story, “The Mystery of the Sasas Valley,” created under the influence of his favorite writers Edgar Allan Poe and Bret Harte, was published by the university Chamber’s Journal, the second, “ American history" – London Society magazine. Since then, Arthur has continued his writing experiments with varying degrees of intensity. One of the Portsmouth magazines bought two of his stories, and the prestigious Cornhill Magazine published the essay “The Message of Hebekuk Jephson”, paying the author as much as 30 pounds.
Inspired by success, Doyle tirelessly wrote articles and pamphlets for newspapers, and sent out his stories and novels to editorial offices and publishing houses. One of them – “A Study in Scarlet” – marked the beginning of the long-term epic of Sherlock Holmes. The idea of ​​writing a detective novel dawned on Conan Doyle when he was once again re-reading Edgar Allan Poe, a writer who not only first coined the word “detective” in the story “The Gold Bug” (1843), but also made his hero detective Dupin the main character of the story. Sherlock Holmes became Doyle’s Dupin – “a detective with a scientific approach who relies only on his own abilities and the deductive method, and not on the mistakes of the criminal or chance.”
“A Study in Scarlet” wandered around the editorial offices for a long time until it caught the eye of the wife of one of the publishers. The novel was published, and soon after its publication in 1887, the new London magazine Strand ordered Doyle 6 more stories about the detective. And then the incredible began: Sherlock Holmes captivated the public so much that they perceived him as a real living person, in flesh and blood, awaiting with admiration new brilliant victories of his keen intellect in the fight against the criminal world. The Strand's circulation doubled, and on the day the next issue of the magazine was published, a huge line of people eager to learn about the new investigations of the independent amateur detective crowded the editorial office. Everything was demanded from Doyle more stories About Holmes, his fame grew, his financial position strengthened, and in 1891 he decided to leave medical practice, move to London and make writing his main profession.

Doyle is full of plans and takes on the historical novel with inspiration. Now Sherlock Holmes, who made him famous, becomes a burden that binds writer's freedom. In addition, the readers went completely crazy - they bombarded him with letters addressed to the detective, sending him gifts - violin strings, pipes, tobacco, even cocaine; checks with large sums for fees, persuading them to take on solving some case. To put an end to this, Conan Doyle writes Holmes's Last Case, where the detective, who was persistently associated with the writer's alter ego, dies in a fight with Professor Moriarty. But that was not the case: a stream of letters poured into the editorial office, crowds gathered around the office with posters “Give us back Holmes!”, the most radical readers tied black mourning ribbons to their hats, and the writer himself received threatening calls at home every now and then. It was in vain that Doyle asked for obviously unreasonable fees, hoping that the Strand would back down - the publishers were ready to pay any money for new stories about Holmes and his faithful friend Doctor Watson.
Reluctantly, the writer agreed to resurrect his hero - largely because of his wife, for whose treatment fabulous sums were spent. Arthur could not forgive himself that, being a doctor, he did not notice the symptoms of tuberculosis in Louise. Experts gave her three months to live - thanks to ultra-expensive treatment in Davos, in Switzerland, Doyle managed to extend his wife’s life by 13 years. In 1897, the 37-year-old writer met Jean Leckie. Over the next 10 years, Arthur was torn between a sense of duty to his terminally ill disabled wife and love for a young beauty. Tormented by remorse, he suppressed his passion and only a year after Louise’s death married Jean.
Conan Doyle always rushed into the thick of things, trying to achieve the truth and defend it: he wrote articles, debated, fought for the release of innocent prisoners, took part in parliamentary elections, served as a surgeon during the Boer War, constantly developed proposals and innovations to improve the condition of the army During the First World War, he was a publicist and human rights activist. Doyle's historical novels, exploring a huge time span, had a resonance in society, and the science fiction stories "The Lost World" and "The Poison Belt" made a splash in those years. King Edward VII granted the writer a knighthood and the title of Sir.
When in 1916 an article appeared in a magazine devoted to occult sciences with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's public confession of having acquired a "spiritualist religion", it had the effect of a bomb exploding. Spiritualism had previously interested the writer, and when it turned out that his second wife Jean had the gift of a medium, the writer’s faith gained new breath. Now the death of his brother, son and two nephews at the front, which became a huge shock in Doyle’s life, did not seem something irreversible - after all, it was possible to communicate with them and establish contact. The sense of duty that always motivated this strong man gave him a new mission - to alleviate the suffering of people, to convince them that there is a way of communication between the living and the departed.
Doyle knew that his fame as a writer would attract people, and, without sparing himself, he crisscrossed the continents, giving lectures around the world. Faithful Holmes came to the rescue this time too - writing new stories about him brought in money, which the writer immediately used to finance his propaganda tours. Journalists made sophisticated mockery: “Conan Doyle has gone crazy! Sherlock Holmes lost his clear analytical mind and began to believe in ghosts." But Doyle, driven by a messianic impulse, did not care about his reputation, or the persuasion of his friends to come to his senses, or the ridicule of his ill-wishers: the main thing was to convey to people the teaching in which he so passionately believed. He devotes his fundamental work “History of Spiritualism”, the books “New Revelation” and “Land of Mists” to this topic.
It is not surprising that the 71-year-old writer, convinced of the posthumous existence of the individual, greeted his death on July 7, 1930 with the words: “I am setting off on the most exciting and glorious journey that has ever happened in my adventurous life.”
At the funeral in the Doyle garden, an upbeat atmosphere reigned: the writer's widow Jean was in a bright dress, a special train brought telegrams and flowers that carpeted the huge field next to the house. One of the telegrams sent read: “Conan Doyle is dead - long live Sherlock Holmes!”

Biography, life story of Doyle Arthur Conan

Writer Conan Doyle was born in 1859 on May 22 in Edinburgh. His father was an architect, his mother did not work. She read a lot and worked with children. Her passion for books and talent as a storyteller had an influence on children. Rich relatives paid for Arthur's education at a Jesuit boarding school in England, where he entered at age 9. It was a preparatory school for Stonyhurst, a closed Catholic school with rather harsh conditions. In 1876 he completed his studies at Stonyhurst and decided to take up medicine. That same year, Arthur became a student at the University of Edinburgh. Arthur earned money in free time from studying, worked as an assistant to doctors and as a pharmacist. Even before entering the university, Doyle encountered the prototype of his Sherlock Holmes, it was their lodger Dr. Brian Charles. After two years of studying at the university, Doyle decided to try himself as a writer. In 1879 he wrote the story "The Secret of the Sesassa Valley". In 1880, while studying in his third year, he took the position of surgeon on the whaling ship Nadezhda. He swam for 7 months, earned 50 pounds and returned to his studies.

This first sea adventure was reflected in the sea story "Captain North Star". Arthur Conan Doyle received his bachelor's degree in medicine in 1881. He also received the position of ship's doctor. Difficult impressions and the situation did not allow him to stay on the ship; he began life on land in England, in Plymouth. He had a joint practice with a university friend. Doyle opened his first practice in July 1882 in Portsmouth.

Doyle soon married (in 1885), his income at that time was 300 pounds a year, his wife's income was 100 pounds a year. Doyle was torn between medicine and literature. After marriage, he decided to focus on literature, to write something serious. He wrote the book Girdlestones Trading House. He also began writing a long novel about Sherlock Holmes, which was published in 1887. It was called "Study in Scarlet." The novel brought him fame. Fate brought him together with people who were engaged in spiritualism. The sessions were based on deception. In August 1991 he finally retired from medicine, gave up his practice in Portsmouth and moved to London. At this time, a daughter, Mary, appeared in the Doyle family.

CONTINUED BELOW

Doyle in 1897 fell in love with a young and amazingly beautiful woman Jean Leckie. She became Doyle's wife ten years after her wife's death. In 1898, Doyle wrote a book about love. The public greeted the book coolly, but the writer himself had a special attachment to it.

At the age of forty, the writer went as a doctor to the Boer War. Terrible front and epidemic conditions, lack of drinking water and intestinal diseases in the field hospital - these conditions had to be overcome for several months. Returning to England, he published a book about this war and threw himself into politics. He was defeated in the elections, he was declared a Catholic fanatic (they remembered his college education). He was defeated for the second time in the elections in 1906. After his wife's death he was depressed for several months, but in 1907 he married Jean.

Doyle, his two children and his wife lived very happily for several years. Before the start of the war, he volunteered to join a detachment that was formed in case of an enemy invasion of England. In 1918 he witnessed a battle on the French front. From this year his final departure into the occult began. In 1920 he met Robert Guddini. Thanks to Doyle, the convinced materialist Guddini was able to understand that in fact spiritualists were scammers and crazy people. But for Conan Doyle, his spiritualistic trips around the world, accompanied by three daughters were the Crusades. He visited the houses of mediums, the house of the Fox sisters. Guddini published an incriminating article about him in 1922, which was called “The perfume compact is pure.” By the mid-1920s, Doyle had spent about a quarter of a million pounds promoting spiritualism. He died on July 7, 1930, surrounded by his family.

Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (Doyle) Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle ; May 22, Edinburgh - July 7, Crowborough, Sussex) - world famous Scottish and English writer - author of detective works about detective Sherlock Holmes, adventure and science fiction books about Professor Challenger, humorous books about Brigadier Gerard,

Doyle also wrote historical novels (“The White Squad”, etc.), plays (“Waterloo”, “Angels of Darkness”, “Lights of Destiny”, “The Speckled Ribbon”), poems (collections of ballads “Songs of Action” (1898) and “Songs of the Road”), autobiographical essays (“Notes of Stark Monroe” or “The Mystery of Stark Monroe”) and “everyday” novels (“Duet accompanied by a random choir”), libretto of the operetta “Jane Annie” (1893, co-authored).

Biography

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was born into an Irish Catholic family renowned for its achievements in the arts and literature. The name Conan was given to him in honor of his father's uncle, artist and writer Michel Conan. Father - Charles Altamont Doyle, an architect and artist, at the age of 23 married 17-year-old Mary Foley, who passionately loved books and had a great talent as a storyteller. From her, Arthur inherited his interest in knightly traditions, exploits and adventures. “My true love for literature, my penchant for writing, I believe, comes from my mother,” Conan Doyle wrote in his autobiography. - “Vivid images of the stories that she told me in early childhood completely replaced in my memory memories of specific events in my life of those years.”

The family of the future writer experienced serious financial difficulties - solely because of the strange behavior of his father, who not only suffered from alcoholism, but also had an extremely unbalanced psyche. Arthur's school life was spent in preparatory school Godder. When the boy was 9 years old, wealthy relatives offered to pay for his education and sent him for the next seven years to the Jesuit closed college Stonyhurst (Lancashire), from where the future writer suffered hatred of religious and class prejudice, as well as physical punishment. The few happy moments of those years for him were associated with letters to his mother: he did not give up the habit of describing in detail to her the current events of his life for the rest of his life. In addition, at the boarding school, Doyle enjoyed playing sports, mainly cricket, and also discovered his talent as a storyteller, gathering around him peers who spent hours listening to stories made up on the go.

A. Conan Doyle, 1893. Photographic portrait by G. S. Berro

As a third-year student, Doyle decided to try his hand at the literary field. His first story, “The Secret of the Sesas Valley” (eng. The Mystery of Sasassa Valley), created under the influence of Edgar Allan Poe and Bret Harte (his favorite authors at that time), was published by the university Chamber's Journal, where the first works of Thomas Hardy appeared. That same year, Doyle's second story, An American Story, The American Tale) appeared in the magazine London Society .

In 1884, Conan Doyle began work on Girdlestone Trading House, a social and everyday novel with a crime-detective plot (written under the influence of Dickens) about cynical and cruel money-grubbing merchants. It was published in 1890.

In 1889, Doyle's third (and perhaps strangest) novel, Clumber's Mystery, was published. The Mystery of Cloud). The story of the "afterlife" of three vengeful Buddhist monks - the first literary evidence of the author's interest in the paranormal - subsequently made him a staunch follower of spiritualism.

Historical cycle

In February 1888, A. Conan Doyle completed work on the novel The Adventures of Micah Clarke, which told the story of the Monmouth Rebellion (1685), the purpose of which was to overthrow King James II. The novel was released in November and was warmly received by critics. From this moment on, a conflict arose in Conan Doyle's creative life: on the one hand, the public and publishers demanded new works about Sherlock Holmes; on the other hand, the writer himself increasingly sought to gain recognition as the author of serious novels (primarily historical ones), as well as plays and poems.

Conan Doyle's first serious historical work is considered to be the novel "The White Squad". In it, the author turned to a critical stage in the history of feudal England, taking as a basis a real historical episode in 1366, when there was a lull in the Hundred Years' War and “white detachments” of volunteers and mercenaries began to emerge. Continuing the war on French territory, they played a decisive role in the struggle of contenders for the Spanish throne. Conan Doyle used this episode for his own artistic purpose: he resurrected the life and customs of that time, and most importantly, presented knighthood, which by that time was already in decline, in a heroic aura. “The White Company” was published in Cornhill magazine (whose publisher, James Penn, declared it “the best historical novel since Ivanhoe”), and was published as a separate book in 1891. Conan Doyle always said that he considered him one of his best works.

With some allowance, the novel “Rodney Stone” (1896) can also be classified as historical: the action here takes place at the beginning of the 19th century, Napoleon and Nelson, playwright Sheridan are mentioned. Initially, this work was conceived as a play with the working title “House of Temperley” and was written under the famous British actor Henry Irving at the time. While working on the novel, the writer studied a lot of scientific and historical literature(“History of the Navy”, “History of Boxing”, etc.).

In 1892, the “French-Canadian” adventure novel “Exiles” and the historical play “Waterloo” were completed. main role in which the famous actor Henry Irving played in those years (who acquired all rights from the author).

Sherlock Holmes

1900-1910

In 1900, Conan Doyle returned to medical practice: as a field hospital surgeon, he went to the Boer War. The book he published in 1902, “The Anglo-Boer War,” met with warm approval from conservative circles, brought the writer closer to government spheres, after which he acquired the somewhat ironic nickname “Patriot,” which he himself, however, was proud of. At the beginning of the century, the writer received the title of nobility and knighthood and twice took part in local elections in Edinburgh (both times he was defeated).

In the early 90s, Conan Doyle established friendly relations with the leaders and employees of Idler magazine: Jerome K. Jerome, Robert Barr and James M. Barry. The latter, having awakened in the writer a passion for theater, attracted him to (ultimately not very fruitful) collaboration in the dramaturgical field.

In 1893, Doyle's sister Constance married Ernst William Hornung. Having become relatives, the writers maintained friendly relations, although they did not always see eye to eye. Main character Hornunga, the “noble burglar” Raffles was very much like a parody of the “noble detective” Holmes.

A. Conan Doyle also highly appreciated the works of Kipling, in whom, in addition, he saw a political ally (both were fierce patriots). In 1895, he supported Kipling in disputes with American opponents and was invited to Vermont, where he lived with his American wife. Later (after Doyle’s critical publications on England’s policy in Africa), relations between the two writers became cooler.

Doyle's relationship with Bernard Shaw was strained, who once described Sherlock Holmes as "a drug addict who has not a single pleasant quality." There is reason to believe that the Irish playwright took the attacks of the former against (now little-known author) Hall Kane, who abused self-promotion, personally. In 1912, Conan Doyle and Shaw entered into a public squabble on the pages of newspapers: the first defended the crew of the Titanic, the second condemned the behavior of the officers of the sunken liner.

Conan Doyle in his article called on the people to express their protest democratically, during the elections, noting that not only the proletariat is experiencing difficulties, but also the intelligentsia and the middle class, with whom Wells has no sympathy. While agreeing with Wells on the need for land reform (and even supporting the creation of farms on the sites of abandoned parks), Doyle rejects his hatred of the ruling class and concludes: “Our worker knows that he, like any other citizen, lives in accordance with certain social laws , and it is not in his interests to undermine the welfare of his state by sawing off the branch on which he himself sits.”

1910-1913

In 1912, Conan Doyle published the science fiction story “The Lost World” (subsequently filmed more than once), followed by “The Poison Belt” (1913). The main character of both works was Professor Challenger, a fanatic scientist endowed with grotesque qualities, but at the same time humane and charming in his own way. At the same time, the last detective story “Valley of Horror” appeared. This work, which many critics tend to underestimate, is considered by Doyle's biographer J. D. Carr to be one of his strongest.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1913

1914-1918

Doyle becomes even more embittered when he becomes aware of the torture that English prisoners of war were subjected to in Germany.

...It is difficult to develop a line of conduct in relation to Red Indians of European descent who torture prisoners of war. It is clear that we ourselves cannot torture the Germans at our disposal in the same way. On the other hand, calls for good-heartedness are also meaningless, for the average German has the same concept of nobility as a cow has of mathematics... He is sincerely incapable of understanding, for example, what makes us speak warmly of von Müller of Weddingen and our other enemies who are trying at least to some extent preserve a human face...

Soon Doyle calls for the organization of “retribution raids” from the territory of eastern France and enters into a discussion with the Bishop of Winchester (the essence of whose position is that “it is not the sinner who is to be condemned, but his sin”): “Let sin fall on those who force us to sin. If we wage this war, guided by Christ’s commandments, there will be no point. If we, following the well-known recommendation taken out of context, turned the “other cheek,” the Hohenzollern empire would have already spread across Europe, and instead of Christ’s teachings, Nietzscheanism would be preached here,” he wrote in The Times, December 31, 1917.

Conan Doyle refuted claims that his interest in spiritualism arose only at the end of the war:

Many people had not encountered Spiritualism or even heard of it until 1914, when the angel of death came knocking on many homes. Opponents of Spiritualism believe that it was the social cataclysms that shook our world that caused such an increased interest in psychic research. These unprincipled opponents stated that the author's advocacy of Spiritualism and his friend Sir Oliver Lodge's defense of the Doctrine was due to the fact that both of them had lost sons in the 1914 war. The conclusion followed from this: grief darkened their minds, and they believed in what they would never have believed in peacetime. The author has refuted this shameless lie many times and emphasized the fact that his research began in 1886, long before the outbreak of the war.. - (“History of Spiritualism”, Chapter 23, “Spiritism and War”)

Among the most controversial works of Conan Doyle in the early 20s is the book “The Phenomenon of the Fairies” ( The Coming of the Fairies, 1921), in which he attempted to prove the truth of the photographs of the Cottingley fairies and put forward his own theories regarding the nature of this phenomenon.

Last years

Sir A. Conan Doyle's grave at Minstead

The writer spent the entire second half of the 20s traveling, visiting all continents, without stopping his active journalistic activity. Having visited England only briefly in 1929 to celebrate his 70th birthday, Doyle went to Scandinavia with the same goal - to preach “... the revival of religion and that direct, practical spiritualism, which is the only antidote to scientific materialism.” This last trip undermined his health: spring next year he spent in bed surrounded by loved ones.

At some point, there was an improvement: the writer immediately went to London to, in a conversation with the Minister of the Interior, demand the abolition of laws that persecuted mediums. This effort turned out to be the last: in the early morning of July 7, 1930, Conan Doyle died of a heart attack at his home in Crowborough (Sussex). He was buried not far from his garden house. At the request of the widow, the knightly motto is engraved on the tombstone: Steel True, Blade Straight(“Loyal as steel, straight as a blade”).

Family

Doyle had five children: two from his first wife, Mary and Kingsley, and three from his second, Jean Lena Annette, Denis Percy Stewart (17 March 1909 - 9 March 1955; in 1936 he became the husband of the Georgian princess Nina Mdivani ) and Adrian.

Conan Doyle became a relative in 1893 famous writer early 20th century Willie Hornung: he married his sister, Connie (Constance) Doyle.

Works (favorites)

Sherlock Holmes series

• The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (collection of stories, 1891-1892)
• Notes on Sherlock Holmes (collection of stories, 1892-1893)