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One Book One Community 2019: The Hound of the Baskervilles: Arthur Conan Doyle

2019 community-wide reading program

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Author Profile

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Born: May 22, 1859 in Edinburgh, United Kingdom

Died: July 07, 1930 in Crowborough, United Kingdom

Other Names: Doyle, A. Conan; Doyle, Conan

Nationality: British

Occupation: Novelist

"SIR ARTHUR CONAN Doyle achieved worldwide fame through the creation of his fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes. Doyle’s writings, along with the Sidney Paget and Frederick Dorr Steele illustrations for the stories and numerous screen portrayals, have made Holmes’s trademarks —the deerstalker cap, magnifying glass, and curved pipe—instantly recognizable to people everywhere.

Doyle’s own life was intriguing, and it is clear that many of his own traits are reflected in his fictional creation. He was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, on 22 May 1859, the son of devout Irish Catholics. The Doyle family was talented in the arts: John, Doyle’s grandfather, was the well-known political caricaturist “HB”; Doyle’s uncle Henry was a talented painter and director of the National Art Gallery of Ireland; his uncle James was a historian and an illustrator; and his uncle Richard created the cover for Punch magazine and was a children’s book illustrator. Charles Doyle, his father, was the least talented of five brothers and had to struggle to support his seven children, earning extra money by illustrating and painting." (p. 201)

Ake, Mary Weichsel. "Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan 1859-1930." Writers for Children: Critical Studies of Major Authors Since the Seventeenth Century, edited by Jane M. Bingham, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1988, pp. 201-207. Scribner Writer Series, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/CX1380000035/GLS?u=lln_pebr&sid=GLS&xid=3949ea96.