![]() XHost |
Oferim servicii de instalare, configurare si monitorizare servere linux (router, firewall, dns, web, email, baze de date, aplicatii, server de backup, domain controller, share de retea) de la 50 eur / instalare. Pentru detalii accesati site-ul BluePink. |
Arthur Conan Doyle
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Born: 22 May 1859, Edinburgh
Died: 7 July 1930
Occupation(s): Novelist, short story writer, poet
Genre(s): Detective fiction, historical novels, non-fiction
Influences : Edgar Allan Poe
Influenced: Agatha Christie and other detective fiction authors
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, DL (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a Scottish author most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, which are generally considered a major innovation in the field of crime fiction, and the adventures of Professor Challenger. He was a prolific writer whose other works include science fiction stories, historical novels, plays and romances, poetry, and non-fiction.
Life
Arthur Conan Doyle was born on 22 May 1859, in Edinburgh, to Irish parents Charles Altamont Doyle and Mary Doyle. He was sent to the Jesuit preparatory school Stonyhurst at the age of nine years old, and by the time he left the school in 1875 he rejected Christianity to become an agnostic.
From 1876 to 1881 he studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh, including a period working in the town of Aston (now a district of Birmingham). Following his term at university he served as a ship's doctor on a voyage to the West African coast, and then in 1882 he set up a practice in Plymouth. He achieved his doctorate concerning Tabes Dorsalis in 1885 (available in the Edinburgh Research Archive [1]).
His medical practice was not very successful, so while waiting for patients, he began writing stories. His first literary experience came in Chambers's Edinburgh Journal before he was 20.
It was only after he moved his practice to Portsmouth that he began to indulge more extensively in literature. His first significant work was A Study in Scarlet, which appeared in Beeton's Christmas Annual for 1887 and featured the first appearance of Sherlock Holmes, who was partially modelled after Conan Doyle's former university professor, Joseph Bell. Interestingly, Rudyard Kipling congratulated Conan Doyle on his success, asking "Could this be my old friend, Dr. Joe?". Sherlock Holmes, however, was even more closely modelled after the famous Edgar Allan Poe character, C. Auguste Dupin. While living in Southsea he helped form Portsmouth AFC, the city's first football club. Common myth holds that Conan Doyle played as Portsmouth F.C.'s first goalkeeper; however, Conan Doyle played for an amateur side that disbanded in 1894 and had no connection to the Portsmouth F.C. of today which was not formed until 1898 (the first goalkeeper of the professional team was Matt Reilly).
In 1885 he married Louisa (or Louise) Hawkins, known as "Touie", who suffered from tuberculosis and eventually died in 1906.[1] He married Jean Leckie in 1907, whom he had first met and fallen in love with in 1897 but had maintained a platonic relationship with her out of loyalty to his first wife. Conan Doyle had five children, two with his first wife (Mary and Kingsley), and three with his second wife (Jean, Denis, and Adrian).
In 1890 Conan Doyle studied the eye in Vienna; he moved to London in 1891 to set up a practice as an ophthalmologist. He wrote in his autobiography that not a single patient crossed his door. This gave him more time for writing, and in November 1891 he wrote to his mother: "I think of slaying Holmes... and winding him up for good and all. He takes my mind from better things." In December 1893, he did so in order to dedicate more of his time to more "important" works (namely his historical novels), pitting Holmes against his arch-nemesis Professor Moriarty.
They apparently plunged to their deaths together down a waterfall in the story "The Final Problem". Public outcry led him to bring the character back; Conan Doyle returned to the story in "The Adventure of the Empty House", with the ingenious explanation that only Moriarty had fallen, but, since Holmes had other dangerous enemies, he had arranged to be temporarily "dead" also. Holmes eventually appears in a total of 56 short stories and four Conan Doyle novels (he has since appeared in many novels and stories by other authors).
Following the Boer War in South Africa at the turn of the 20th century and the condemnation from around the world over the United Kingdom's conduct, Conan Doyle wrote a short pamphlet titled The War in South Africa: Its Cause and Conduct which justified the UK's role in the Boer war, and was widely translated.
Conan Doyle believed that it was this pamphlet that resulted in his being knighted and appointed as Deputy-Lieutenant of Surrey in 1902. He also wrote the longer book The Great Boer War in 1900. During the early years of the 20th century Sir Arthur twice ran for Parliament as a Liberal Unionist, once in Edinburgh and once in the Border Burghs, but although he received a respectable vote he was not elected.
Arthur Conan Doyle statue in Crowborough
Conan Doyle was involved in the campaign for the reform of the Congo Free State, led by the journalist E. D. Morel and the diplomat Roger Casement. He wrote The Crime of the Congo in 1909, a long pamphlet in which he denounced the horrors in Congo. He become acquainted with Morel and Casement, taking inspiration from them for two of the main characters of the novel The Lost World (1912).
He broke with both when Morel (who
was rather left-wing) became one of the leaders of the pacifist
movement during the First World War, and when Casement committed
treason against the UK during the Easter Rising out of conviction for
his Irish nationalist views. Conan Doyle tried, unsuccessfully, to save
Casement from the death penalty, arguing that he had been driven mad
and was not responsible for his actions.
Conan Doyle was also a fervent advocate of justice, and personally investigated two closed cases, which led to two imprisoned men being released. The first case, in 1906, involved a shy half-British, half-Indian lawyer named George Edalji, who had allegedly penned threatening letters and mutilated animals. Police were set on Edalji's conviction, even though the mutilations continued even after their suspect was jailed.
It was partially as a result of this case that the Court of Criminal Appeal was established in 1907, so not only did Conan Doyle help George Edalji, his work helped to establish a way to correct other miscarriages of justice. The story of Conan Doyle and Edalji is told in fictional form in Julian Barnes's 2005 novel, Arthur & George.
The second case, that of Oscar Slater, a German Jew and gambling-den operator convicted of bludgeoning an 82-year-old woman in Glasgow in 1908, excited Conan Doyle's curiosity because of inconsistencies in the prosecution case and a general sense that Slater was framed.
After the death of his wife Louisa in 1906, and the deaths of his son Kingsley, his brother, his two brothers-in-law, and his two nephews in World War I, Conan Doyle sank into depression. He found solace supporting spiritualism and its alleged scientific proof of existence beyond the grave.
Conan Doyle became involved with spiritualism, to the extent that he wrote a Professor Challenger novel on the subject, The Land of Mist. One of the odder aspects of this period of his life was his book The Coming of the Fairies (1921). He was apparently totally convinced of the veracity of the Cottingley fairy photographs, which he reproduced in the book, together with theories about the nature and existence of fairies and spirits. In his The History of Spiritualism (1926) Conan Doyle highly praised the psychic phenomena and spirit materializations produced by Eusapia Palladino and "Margery," Mina Crandon, based on the investigations of duped scientists and conjurers who deeply desired to encounter psychic phenomena and refused to listen to skeptical and well-informed scientists and conjurers.
His work on this topic was one of the reasons that one of his short story collections, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, was banned in the Soviet Union in 1929 for supposed occultism. This ban was later lifted.
Conan Doyle was friends for a time with the American magician Harry Houdini, a prominent opponent of the Spiritualist movement. Although Houdini insisted that Spiritualist mediums employed trickery (and consistently attempted to expose them as frauds), Conan Doyle became convinced that Houdini himself possessed supernatural powers, a view expressed in Conan Doyle's The Edge of the Unknown. Houdini was apparently unable to convince Conan Doyle that his feats were simply magic tricks, leading to a bitter, public, falling-out between the two.
Richard Milner, an American historian of science, has presented a case that Conan Doyle may have been the perpetrator of the Piltdown man hoax of 1912, creating the counterfeit hominid fossil that fooled the scientific world for over 40 years. Milner says that Conan Doyle had a motive, namely revenge on the scientific establishment for debunking one of his favourite psychics, and that The Lost World contains several encrypted clues regarding his involvement in the hoax (see [2]).
Samuel Rosenberg's 1974 book Naked is the Best Disguise purports to explain how Conan Doyle left, throughout his writings, open clues that related to hidden and suppressed aspects of his mentality.
Conan Doyle was found clutching his chest in the family garden on July 7, 1930. He soon died of his heart attack, aged 71, and is buried in the Church Yard at Minstead in the New Forest, Hampshire, England. His last words were directed toward his wife: "You are wonderful."
Undershaw, the home Conan Doyle had built near Hindhead, south of London, and lived in for at least a decade, was a hotel and restaurant from 1924 until 2004. It was then bought by a developer, and has sat empty since then while conservationists and Conan Doyle fans fight to preserve it.[1]
A statue has been erected in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's honour at Crowborough Cross in Crowborough, East Sussex, England, where Sir Arthur lived for 23 years. There is also a statue of Sherlock Holmes in Picardy Place, Edinburgh, Scotland — close to the house where Conan Doyle was born.
Trivia
While Sir Arthur Conan Doyle lived in England his personal chauffeur was to-be-notorious Paris robber Jules Bonnot.
Arthur Conan Doyle also co-wrote the comic opera Jane Annie in 1893 which turned out to be a huge failure.
In addition to being a writer, he was also a historian, war correspondent and spiritualist. He was also an ardent whaler. Conan Doyle was a noted sportsman, and made ten first class appearances for Marylebone Cricket Club between 1900 and 1907.
There is now a popular anime/manga with a character somewhat named after him called Detective Conan. There is even a movie with a Holmes reference: Detective Conan - The Phantom of Baker Street.
Selected bibliography
Sherlock Holmes stories A Study in Scarlet (1887) The Sign of Four (1890) The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892) The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1894) The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902) The Return of Sherlock Holmes (1904) The Valley of Fear (1914) His Last Bow (1917) The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes (1927) |
|
Historical novels The White Company (1891) Micah Clarke (1888) The Great Shadow (1892) The Refugees (publ. 1893, written 1892) Rodney Stone (1896) Uncle Bernac (1897) Sir Nigel (1906) The British Campaign in France and Flanders: 1914 (1916) |
Other works "J. Habakuk Jephson's Statement" (1883), a story about the fate of the ship Mary Celeste Mystery of Cloomber (1889) The Captain of the Polestar, and other tales (1890) The Doings Of Raffles Haw (1891) Beyond the City (1892) Jane Annie, or the Good Conduct Prize (1893) Round The Red Lamp (1894) The Parasite (1894) The Stark Munro Letters (1895) Songs of Action (1898) The Tragedy of The Korosko (1898) A Duet (1899) The Great Boer War (1900) |
List of additional Sherlock Holmes literature Professor Challenger stories The Lost World (1912) The Poison Belt (1913) The Land of Mists (1926) The Disintegration Machine (1927) When the World Screamed (1928)
|
The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard (1903) Through the Magic Door (1907) The Crime of the Congo (1909) The New Revelation (1918) The Vital Message (1919) Tales of Terror & Mystery (1923) The History of Spiritualism (1926) The Maracot Deep (1929) |
Have
you heard of William Sydney Porter?
No,
you haven’t. This is the real name of the American writer O.Henry
(which is his
pen name). The term “O.Henry Ending” was popularized with the clever
use of
twist endings in his stories.
We
are a group of students and their English teacher from
William
Sidney Porter was born in 1862 on a plantation”Worth Place” in
William
was an avid reader, and graduated from his aunt’s elementary school in
1876,
then enrolled at the
In
1894 Porter started a humorous weekly called The Rolling Stone. In
1895, after
The Rolling Stone ceased publication, he moved to Huston, where he
started
writing for the Huston Post. Shortly thereafter, he was arrested for
embezzlement in connection with his previous employment in
Porter
was granted bond, but the day before he was due to stand trial on July 7th,
1896, he absconded to
Athol
Estes Porter died on July 25th, 1897. Porter was found
guilty of
embezzlement, sentenced to five years jail, and imprisoned on April 25th,
1898 at the Ohio State Penitentiary. He was released on the July 24th,
1901 for good behaviour after serving three years.
Porter
published at least twelve stories while in prison to help support to
his
daughter. Not wanting his readers to know he was in jail, he started
using the
pen name”O.Henry”. It is believed that Porter got his name from one of
the
guards who was named Orrin Henry.
Is it
interesting? We will go on. Be patient! We will go on with the
biography and
with some comments of his stories.
However,
there is much debate on this issue” one Porter biographer asserts that
the name
was derived from a girlfriend’s cat, which answered to “Oh, Henry!” Guy
Davenport, meanwhile, wrote that the name was a condensation of “Ohio
Penitentiary”. It also could be an abbreviation of the name of French
pharmacist, Etienne-Ossian Henry, who is referred to in the U.S.
Dispensatory,
a reference work Porter used when he was in the prison pharmacy.
Further
confusing the issue is that fro at least one short story, and for a
later
autobiographical author profile, Porter signed the: full” name Olivier
Henry.
STUDENTS’ OPINIONS
Reading is one of the most exciting things – Zlatina Dikova, 18
I really like reading and I was very happy when we joined this project.
Sometimes I take books from the library or from my friends. I enjoy reading historical novels but I have read only science books recently. I don’t like poems very much.
At the beginning our group chose to write about Oscar Wilde. When we understood that he had already been chosen we were quite disappointed. Then my literature teacher suggested O.Henry. To be honest- I have never heard about him. Later I found out that he wrote short stories which I liked very much.
Because of this project I got to know the O. Henry’s works. And
I’m very glad I did it.
Rosita Petkova, 18
In
my opinion
O. Henry is a brilliant story teller. He has an amazing variety of
stories and
the most important is that they are very emotional, with surprising
endings and
high humor. These things can catch your attention. O. Henry can help
everyone
to find something good in the lead situations. Every time I read some
of his
stories, at the end I close my eyes and I feel that I am not alone in
this
world so cruel and grey. I feel a sense of hope for life.