Created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes lives on as one of the best-known literary characters in the English language.
Many wonder if the detective who still enthralls readers was based upon a real person, here is the answer.
Conan Doyle, born in Scotland in 1859,
studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh and went on to work as a
physician in England while writing fiction in his spare time. “A Study
in Scarlet,” his first novel featuring Sherlock Holmes, debuted in 1887.
The Revelation
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s fictional
detective with the knack for solving crimes through observation and
reason was modeled after Dr. Joseph Bell, one of Conan Doyle’s medical
school professors.
A fellow Scotsman born in 1837, the
charismatic Bell dazzled his students with demonstrations in which he
was able to determine a patient’s occupation and other personal details
just by studying his appearance and mannerisms.
In addition to taking class with Bell,
Conan Doyle served for a time as his clerk at the Royal Infirmary of
Edinburgh, where he got a further look at the older man’s diagnostic
methods.
Years later, Conan Doyle wrote to Bell:
“It is most certainly to you that I owe Sherlock Holmes and though in
the stories I have the advantage of being able to place him in all sorts
of dramatic positions, I do not think that his analytical work is in
the least an exaggeration of some effects which I have seen you produce
in the outpatient ward.”
The success of the initial Sherlock
Holmes stories enabled Conan Doyle to give up his medical practice in
1891 and devote himself to writing; however, the author grew tired of
his creation and killed him off in 1893’s “The Final Problem.” Following
a public outcry, Conan Doyle resurrected Holmes and continued to
publish stories about the detective until 1927.
Conan Doyle, who was knighted in 1902
for penning a lengthy pamphlet defending Britain’s participation in the
Boer War, died in England in 1930 (19 years after Bell’s passing).
Courtesy: History.com
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