Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1859 into a moderately prosperous Irish-Catholic family. His mother was a storyteller with a passion for reading. Whenever she reached the climax of a story, she would “lower her voice to a horror-stricken whisper.” Conan Doyle said his mother’s fictional stories were some of his most vivid childhood memories. Conan Doyle went away to boarding school and had a hard time with the bigotry and corporal punishment he experienced there. He discovered during that time that he, like his mother, had a talent for storytelling.
After boarding school, Conan Doyle went to medical school. There, he met Dr. Joseph Bell, who was not only a...
