Social Victorians/People/Arthur Conan Doyle

Also Known As

• Family name: Doyle
• Arthur Conan Doyle
• A. C. Doyle

Demographics

• Nationality: Irish descent, born in Edinburgh
• Religion: born Catholic, then agnostic with an interest in spiritualism

Residences

• Doyle lived at Undershaw, a house he designed with architect Joseph Henry Ball in Hindhead, Haslemere (October 1897 – September 1907)

Family

• Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930)
• Touie (Louisa) Hawkins (1857–1906)

1. Mary Louise Conan Doyle (1889–1976)
2. Kingsley (Arthur Alleyne Kingsley) Conan Doyle (1892–1918)

• Jean Elizabeth Leckie (1874–1940)

1. Denis Percy Stewart Conan Doyle (1909–1955)
2. Adrian Malcolm Conan Doyle (1910–1970)
3. Jean Lena Annette Conan Doyle (1912–1997)

Acquaintances, Friends and Enemies

Acquaintances

• Joseph Marshall Stoddart
• Thomas Patrick Gill
• Oscar Wilde
• Henry Pullen Burry
• Robert Felkin
• George Edalji
• Oscar Slater

Friends

• Joseph Bell (Doyle's teacher at the University of Edinburgh Medical School)
• Brinsley Richards
• A. A. Milne
• P. G. Woodhouse
• James M. Barrie
• Fletcher Robinson
• Henry Houdini
• William Gillette

Organizations

• Portsmouth Association Football Club, as A. C. Smith (1882–c. 1891?)
• Marylebone Cricket Club (1899–1907)
• The Allahakberries (1890–1913)
• The Authors Club
• The Authors Cricket Club (Authors XI) (1891–1912)
• Captain, Crowborough Beacon Golf Club (1910)
• Freemason, Phoenix Lodge No. 257 in Southsea
• Founding member, Hampshire Society for Psychical Research (1889–)
• Society for Psychical Research (1893–)

Timeline

1885, Arthur Conan Doyle and Touie (Louisa) Hawkins married.

1887 January 26, Arthur Conan Doyle was initiated into the Phoenix Lodge No. 257 in Southsea as a Freemason.

1889 January, when his daughter was born, Arthur Conan Doyle put the announcement in the Evening News: "CONAN DOYLE. On the 28th instant, at Bush Villa, Elm Grove, Mrs Conan Doyle, wife of A. Conan Doyle MD, of a daughter" (Stavert 136).

1889 August 30, Stoddart was present at the dinner at the Langham Hotel with Gill, Stoddart and Wilde.

1897, Arthur Conan Doyle and Jean Elizabeth Leckie met and fell in love.

1898, Henry Pullen Burry met twice with Arthur Conan Doyle, the second time bringing Robert Felkin, to talk about spiritual matters and to try to convince him to join the Golden Dawn. "After the death of a son in World War I, Conan Doyle had become deeply immersed in spiritualistic phenomena; indeed, he became a world leader in the movement" (Baring-Gould I 17-18, n. 32).

1902, Arthur Conan Doyle was made Knight Bachelor.

1903, Arthur Conan Doyle was knighted again, this time as Knight of Grace of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem.

1907, Arthur Conan Doyle and Jean Elizabeth Leckie married.

Bibliography

• "Allahakberries." Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allahakbarries (accessed August 2020).
• "Arthur Conan Doyle." Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Conan_Doyle (accessed August 2020).
• "Authors Cricket Club." Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authors_Cricket_Club (accessed August 2020).
• Baring-Gould
• Stavert

Conan Doyle's Works

• The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, with "104 illustrations drawn for the Strand Magazine by Sidney Paget," was published in 1902 by London publisher George Newnes (Baring-Gould I 14, n. 26). The first American edition, "with a frontispiece and 15 other illustrations by Paget, was published by Harper & Brothers of New York" also in 1892 (I 14, n. 26).
• "The Final Problem," illustrated by Sidney Paget, published in the Strand, December 1893 (Baring-Gould II 302).
• "The Adventure of the Empty House," illustrated by Sidney Paget, published in the Strand, October 1903 (Baring-Gould II 331).
• "The Adventure of the Norwood Builder," illustrated by Sidney Paget, published in the Strand, November 1903 (Baring-Gould II 415).
  • The MS is owned by the New York Public Library (Baring-Gould II 431).
• "The Adventure of the Dancing Men," illustrated by Sidney Paget, published in the Strand, December 1903 (Baring-Gould II 529).
• "The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist," illustrated by Sidney Paget, published in the Strand, January 1904 (Baring-Gould II 384).
  • Cyril Morton, Miss Violet Smith's fiance, is an electrical engineer (Baring-Gould II 385).
• "The Adventure of Black Peter," illustrated by Sidney Paget, published in the Strand, April 1904 (Baring-Gould II 399).
• "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton," illustrated by Sidney Paget, published in the Strand, March 1904 (Baring-Gould II 558, n. 1, and 559).
• "The Adventure of the Three Students," illustrated by Sidney Paget, published in the Strand, June 1904 (Baring-Gould II 370). [The MS is in the Houghton Library at Harvard, gift of Norton Perkins (Baring-Gould II 382).]
• "The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez," illustrated by Sidney Paget, published in the Strand, July 1904 (Baring-Gould II 351).
  • The old professor says, "That is my magnum opus -- the pile of papers on the side-table yonder. It is my analysis of the documents found in the Coptic monastaries of Syria and Egypt, a work which is cut deep at the very foundations of revealed religion" (Baring-Gould II 360).
  • There is a brotherhood called an Order (Baring-Gould II 365).
• "The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter," illustrated by Sidney Paget, published in the Strand, August 1904 (Baring-Gould II 370).
  • The MS is in the British Museum (Baring-Gould II 490).
• "The Adventure of the Abbey Grange," illustrated by Sidney Paget, published in the Strand, September 1904 (Baring-Gould II 491).
• "The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans," illustrated by ? Twidle, published in the Strand, December 1908 (Baring-Gould II 435).
  • Watson's opening, a description of the 3d week in November, 1895, is a memorable evocation of London pollution: "In the third week of November, in the year 1895, a dense yellow fog settled down upon London. From the Monday to the Thursday I doubt whether it was ever possible from our windows in Baker Street to see the loom of the opposite houses. The first day Holmes had spent in cross-indexing his huge book of references. The second and third had been patiently occupied upon a subject which he had recently made his hobby — the music of the Middle Ages. But when, for the fourth time, after pushing back our chairs from breakfast we saw the greasy, heavy brown swirl still drifting past us and condensing in oily drops upon the window-panes, my comrade's impatient and active nature could endure this drab existence no longer" (Baring-Gould II 435).
• "The Adventure of the Devil's Foot," illustrated by Gilbert Holiday, published in the Strand, December 1910 (Baring-Gould II 509).
  • Holmes is studying "Chaldee" (Baring-Gould II 526).