{"id":971,"date":"2014-05-05T15:29:59","date_gmt":"2014-05-05T11:29:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/englishbookgeorgia.com\/blogebg\/?p=971"},"modified":"2014-11-19T16:17:30","modified_gmt":"2014-11-19T12:17:30","slug":"arthur-conan-doyle-interesting-things-about-conan-doyle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/englishbookgeorgia.com\/blogebg\/arthur-conan-doyle-interesting-things-about-conan-doyle\/","title":{"rendered":"Interesting Facts about Arthur Conan Doyle"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sherlock Holmes’s creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle embraced football, fairies and public feuds. Here are things that you may not know about the writer.<\/p>\n

1. Doyle was one of the earliest motorists in Britain<\/strong><\/p>\n

He reportedly bought a car without ever having driven one before. In 1911, he took part in the Prince Henry Tour, an international road competition organized by Prince Henry of Prussia to pit British cars against German ones. Doyle paired up with his second wife, Jean, as one of the British driving teams.<\/p>\n

2. Conan is not part of his surname<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is, in fact, only one of his two middle names. He is Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle. Shortly after he graduated from high school he began using Conan as part of his surname.<\/p>\n

3. Doyle was on the same cricket team as ‘Peter Pan’ writer J.M. Barrie<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

They also worked together on a comic opera, Jane Annie, which Barrie begged his friend to revise and finish for him.<\/p>\n

4. He could have discussed Dracula and Treasure Island with their authors<\/strong><\/p>\n

Doyle was also friends with Bram Stoker, and Robert Louis Stevenson was a fellow classmate at the University of Edinburgh.<\/p>\n

5. He helped to popularize skiing<\/strong><\/p>\n

He not only liked cricket and football, but Doyle helped to popularize the winter sport. Following a move to Davros, Switzerland in 1893 (the mountain air was prescribe to aid his wife\u2019s health), he mastered the basics with the help of the Brangger brothers, two locals who had taken to practising the sport after dark to avoid being teased by the townsfolk. Together, they were the first people to make the 8,000ft pass through the Maienfelder Furka, which separated Davos from the neighbouring town of Arosa. Doyle was also the first Englishman to document the thrill of skiing: \u201cYou let yourself go,\u201d he said. \u201cGetting as near to flying as any earthbound man can. In that glorious air it is a delightful experience.\u201d Doyle correctly predicted that in the future hundreds of Englishmen would come to Switzerland for the \u201cskiing season\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Conan Doyle was the first to bring skiing from Scandinavia to Switzerland.<\/p>\n

\u00a06. He was a goalie<\/strong><\/p>\n

Under the pseudonym AC Smith, the writer played as a goalkeeper for amateur side Portsmouth Association Football Club, a precursor of the modern Portsmouth FC.<\/p>\n

7. Doyle ran for parliament… twice!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Doyle ran for parliament (representing the Unionist Party) once in Edinburgh (in 1900) and once in the Border Burghs (in 1906). Although he received a respectable vote both times he was not elected. In the 1900 general election, Doyle was defeated by CM Brown of the Liberal Party, who received 3,028 votes against 2,459 cast for Doyle.<\/p>\n

8. Ophthalmology’s loss was literature’s gain<\/strong><\/p>\n

Arthur Conan Doyle set up an ophthalmology practice in London. Doyle wrote in his autobiography that not a single patient ever crossed his door. Although, the silver lining was that he could dedicate his time to writing.<\/p>\n

9. He believed in fairies<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sherlock might have been a skeptic but Arthur Conan Doyle believed in fairies. Well, he was convinced by the Cuttingly Fairy photographs, the famous 1917 hoax. He even spent a million dollars promoting them and wrote a book, The Coming of the Fairies (1921), on their authenticity.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

One of the Cottingley Fairies photographs, taken by Elsie Wright (15) and her cousin Frances Griffiths, which caused a storm in 1917.<\/p>\n

10. And also believed in a number of mediums<\/strong><\/p>\n

But this came at the cost of his friendship with Harry Houdini, who at the same time was trying to disprove the claims of the Spiritualist movement.<\/p>\n

11. Why he killed off his most famous creation?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sherlock Holmes was far from being Doyle\u2019s own favorite character and was killed off in 1893, only to be resurrected 10 years later after public demand and monetary persuasion. He had earlier told a friend: “I couldn’t revive him if I would, at least not for years, for I have had such an overdose of him that I feel towards him as I do towards p\u00e2t\u00e9 de foie gras, of which I once ate too much, so that the name of it gives me a sickly feeling to this day.” However, there may have been other reasons for the writer killing off his famous creation, as it happened in the same year that Doyle\u2019s alcoholic father died in an asylum.<\/p>\n

12. Doyle and George Bernard Shaw had a spat about the Titanic<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

After the Titanic sank in 1912, Doyle and George Bernard Shaw had a very public disagreement about the disaster. Doyle was outraged by the dismissive and bitter comments made by the playwright regarding the many acts of heroics that took place aboard the ship as it went down.<\/p>\n

13. There’s a square in Switzerland named after him<\/strong><\/p>\n

The town of Meiringen in Switzerland was the location of The Adventure of the Final Problem, the novel in which the author killed the detective off. In 1988, a statue of Sherlock Holmes was placed in the village square, now named Conan Doyle Place.<\/p>\n

14. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle didn’t just write mysteries, he actually solved a few<\/strong><\/p>\n

One of particular interest to him was The Curious Case of Oscar Slater – for the murder of Marion Gilchrist, a wealthy 82-year-old woman from Glasgow. Doyle applied the \u201cHolmes method\u201d, in which he uncovered new evidence, recalled witnesses and questioned the prosecution’s evidence. His findings were published as a plea for Slater’s pardon. It caused a sensation and there were calls for a retrial, but all this was promptly ignored by the Scottish authorities. The desperate and incarcerated Slater later smuggled messages out of prison and Doyle’s interest in the case was reignited. He wrote to politicians and used his own money to fund Slater’s legal fees. One politician, Ramsay McDonald – Britain’s first Labour prime minister – informed the Scottish Secretary that the police and the legal authorities had colluded to withhold evidence and influence witnesses. Slater was subsequently released from prison with \u00a36,000 compensation but never shared it with Doyle.<\/p>\n

15. Doyle died holding a flower<\/strong><\/p>\n

Doyle died on July 7, 1930. He collapsed in his garden, clutching his heart with one hand and holding a flower in the other. His last words were to his wife. He whispered to her: \u201cYou are wonderful.\u201d<\/p>\n

16. A s\u00e9ance was organized for him to make an appearance from beyond the grave<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Following his death, a s\u00e9ance was conducted at the Royal Albert Hall. Thousands attended, including his wife and children. A row of chairs were arranged on the stage for the family, with one left empty for Sir Arthur. Even though he did not appear, there were many people in the audience who claimed they had felt his presence among them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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