Arthur Conan Doyle was born in Scotland on this day in 1859. He studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh where he met a man who he later would claim to have used as a basis for Holmes, Dr Joseph Bell.

After graduation, Conan Doyle ran a medical practice in London, but business was slow and he managed to write the Study In Scarlet during this time. This story was published in Beeton's Christmas Annual in 1887.

In 1891 The Strand magazine ran a number of Holmes stories, and it was at this time that he became a full-time writer. (He was paid an average of $175 for each of his first 6 short stories. He raised his rate to $250 a story after they became popular.)

Doyle, however, soon grew tired of his creation and he killed Holmes off in an episode called The Final Problem in 1893.

But the public outcry that resulted forced him to start a new series of stories.

He was knighted in 1902 for his work in a field hospital in South Africa.

He died in 1930.

theVoiceofReason.com has published a number of the public domain Sherlock Holmes stories in pdf format in our feature theVoiceofReason.com/sherlock.