1859: Scotland Yard’s Storyteller

Arthur Conan Doyle is born in Edinburgh, Scotland

The man who would dream up the most famous detective in all literature remembers well his mother’s gift for entertaining her children with tales. But as was the custom of the day, Arthur Conan Doyle was sent to boarding school at a young age. There, he followed in his mother’s footsteps by telling classmates stories.

Following medical school, Doyle wrote for fun, and in 1887, he conceived of the characters Sherlock Holmes and his sidekick, and sometimes narrator, Dr. Watson, who solved crimes together.

Four years later, he happily left his medical practice to write full time, writing more Sherlock Holmes stories and novels, and the creepy novel The Hound of the Baskervilles. Yet it was Doyle’s pipe-smoking, deeply analytical detective Holmes who captured readers’ hearts most, then and now—in books, on stage, and in movies.