Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh on May 22, 1859, one of seven children who survived to adulthood. Rejecting his family's strict Catholicism and, cut off from their patronage, he decided to set up his own practice in Southsea in 1882. After the death of his first wife, Louise Hawkins, he went on to marry Jean Leckie in 1907 and they had two sons and a daughter. He died in 1930.

He is unique in simultaneously bringing down the curtain on an era and raising one on another, ushering in a genre of writing that... has never been surpassed. His own life, as footballer... eye surgeon, champion of injustice and investigator into the paranormal, is the stuff of legend. Personally, I would walk a mile in tight boots to read his letters to the milkman

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh on May 22, 1859, one of seven children who survived to adulthood. Rejecting his family's strict Catholicism and, cut off from their patronage, he decided to set up his own practice in Southsea in 1882. After the death of his first wife, Louise Hawkins, he went on to marry Jean Leckie in 1907 and they had two sons and a daughter. He died in 1930.

He is unique in simultaneously bringing down the curtain on an era and raising one on another, ushering in a genre of writing that... has never been surpassed. His own life, as footballer... eye surgeon, champion of injustice and investigator into the paranormal, is the stuff of legend. Personally, I would walk a mile in tight boots to read his letters to the milkman

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh on May 22, 1859, one of seven children who survived to adulthood. Rejecting his family's strict Catholicism and, cut off from their patronage, he decided to set up his own practice in Southsea in 1882. After the death of his first wife, Louise Hawkins, he went on to marry Jean Leckie in 1907 and they had two sons and a daughter. He died in 1930.

He is unique in simultaneously bringing down the curtain on an era and raising one on another, ushering in a genre of writing that... has never been surpassed. His own life, as footballer... eye surgeon, champion of injustice and investigator into the paranormal, is the stuff of legend. Personally, I would walk a mile in tight boots to read his letters to the milkman