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How Sir Arthur Conan Doyle鈥檚 student days at Edinburgh University brought Sherlock Holmes to life

22 May 2017

The Scottish author was born in Edinburgh on 22 May 1859. A prolific writer, Conan Doyle is best-known as the creator of Sherlock Holmes.

Arthur Conan Doyle by Walter Benington, 1914. Public domain image.

Conan Doyle starting writing short stories while studying for his degree in medicine at the University of Edinburgh and these years as a student provided the bedrock for his most famous creation.

Fed up with traditional literary detectives who solved crimes through intuition alone, Conan Doyle wanted a scientific, rational hero.

He found it in – a man who regularly impressed his students with remarkable powers of deduction based on solid scientific principles.

The author also, allegedly, found Sherlock’s trusty sidekick, Dr Watson, among Bell’s acquaintances .

First appearing in A Study in Scarlet in 1887, the adventures of Holmes and Dr John Watson became wildly successful. Conan Doyle was less enamoured with his creation and in 1893 he did the unthinkable; in his tale The Final Problem he killed Holmes off at the . Public outcry led to the return of Holmes in 1901 in The Hound of the Baskervilles.

Arthur Conan Doyle died in 1930. Celebrated as an author, during his lifetime he had been:-

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To date Holmes has appeared in over 200 films, has never been out of print, and has even counted Queen Victoria as an avid fan.

In 2010 he returned to the screen portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch in the 大象传媒 series .

A modern take on Conan Doyle’s detective, Cumberbatch’s Sherlock is an avid fan of technology and is never without his smartphone and a Wi-fi connection.