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The Hound of the Baskervilles
Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930)
Arthur
Conan Doyle was born to a family of Roman Catholics in Edinburgh, in 1859.
His father, Charles, was a civil servant who suffered from epilepsy and
alcoholism. He was educated in Jesuit schools and eventually lost his faith
in Catholicism in favor of his Jesuit training. He would later use his
friends and teachers from Stonyhurst College as inspiration for characters
in his Holmes stories.
Doyle married Louise Hawkins in 1884 and then in 1885 he graduated as
a doctor from Edinburgh University. After graduation Doyle practiced medicine
and specialized in eye care in Hampshire. He remained there until 1891
when he became a full time writer. His first story, a Sherlock Holmes novel
called A Study in Scarlet, had been published in 1887.
Doyle followed his first novel with The Sign of Four and then
in 1891 The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes was incrementally published
by the Strand Magazine. His works were met with public approval and he
soon became quite popular, in fact he would eventually, in the 1920s, become
one of the highest paid writers in the world. But the massive initial popularity
had an affect on Doyle and by the end of 1891 he had sworn to end the series,
which he thought he achieved by killing Sherlock Holmes in The Final
Problem, which was published in December of 1893.
During
the South African War (1899-1902) Doyle served as a physician in a field
hospital, where he wrote The Great Boer War in which he defended
the policy of his homeland. After the war, in 1902, Doyle returned to England
and was knighted. He then took up the pen again for the revered detective
and published The Hound of the Baskervilles, a prequel, in 1902.
He then resurrected his dead logician in The Empty House and continued
writing short stories about Holmes and Watson.
In 1906 Doyle ran for Parliament but failed to be elected, the next year
his wife, long ill, died. Shortly after his wife's death Doyle remarried
to Jean Leckie. Then, in WWI, his son died. This was a tragedy for Doyle
and it affected him deeply. As a result he dedicated the rest of his life
to spiritual causes. His last book, a collection of short stories known
as The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes was published in 1927. Doyle
died of heart disease on July 7, 1930.
You can read individual chapters here:
or download the whole book to read it off-line:
Otros libros del mes en inglés:
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