Happy Birthday, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle!
On this day, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (KStJ DL) was born. This year sees his 164th birthday. He was a British writer and a physician. While his biggest claim to fame was the creation of Sherlock Holmes, he was actually quite a prolific writer. He also had written poetry, plays, science fiction and fantasy stories with another creation of his: Professor George Edward Challenger, and even humor tales. His stories even helped raise the mystery of the Mary Celeste to public conciousness.
Doyle was also a bit of a renaissance man. He was a doctor, amateur boxer, amateur billiards player, skiier (He helped popularize skiing in Switzerland), and he even helped get two men exonerated for their crimes, by personally investigating their cases.
I first learned of his work as a kid. When I was a kid, I had these small books that collected various stories by classical authors, people like Robert Louis Stevenson. My favorite of those books was a little gray one that collected three of Doyle's Sherlock Holmes short stories: The Red-Headed League, the Adventure of the Spackled Band, and The Adventure of the Copper Beeches.
I read through that little book several times over. I know I still have it somewhere. It was one of my favorite books. Sherlock Holmes became a personal favorite character of mine. Mainly because I identified with him a bit. I saw him as an autistic superhero. I doubt that was what Doyle intended, but I saw a bit of myself in him. Thank you for that, Sir Doyle.
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