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Sherlock Holmes Day/Arthur Conan Doyle's Birthday

Poster of 1922 film "Sherlock Holmes" depicting the title character sitting in a chair.
Credit: Wikimedia Commons


Sorry for posting so late in the week. But I thought I would time the release of this post perfectly by releasing it on the birthday of author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, most famously known for his Sherlock Holmes stories and books. And I timed it perfectly just in time: it was only this morning that I found out today was his birthday, a day popularly known as "Sherlock Holmes Day"! 

Sir Doyle was born May 22, 1859 in Edinburgh, Scotland. Although he was best known for his Holmes detective stories, he also wrote several works of science fiction and even some horror. His most famous work of science fiction is the novel, "The Lost World" (1912), the first book of the Professor Challenger trilogy. The other two are "The Poison Belt" (1913) and "The Land of Mist" (1926). His horror includes short story "Adventure of the Sussex Vampire" (1924) and novel "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (1901). 

Here at the Fantastic Site, we have two posts from past years where I reviewed "Hound" and its movie adaptations. However, in neither of those did I go over a little known fact about how that novel came to be. According to a Wikipedia article, Doyle wrote the novel in response to fans' criticism against his having killed off Holmes in the short story called "The Final Problem". The article explains that Doyle had written in the death in an attempt to end the detective series and concentrate on writing historical fiction. It wasn't until two years after the publishing of "Hound" that he explained in his 1893 short story, "The Adventure of the Empty House", Holmes' death having been faked. 

Read more about Doyle's "The Hound of the Baskervilles" and its film adaptations at these links:


Do you have a favourite Sherlock Holmes story and/or movie adaptation? Have you read any of Arthur Conan Doyle's work outside of his Sherlock Holmes series? 

Until next time . . . 

 

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