“A
man should keep his little brain attic stocked with all the furniture that he
is likely to use, and the rest he can put away in the lumber-room of his
library, where he can get it if he wants it.” –Arthur Conan
Doyle
Today is the anniversary of the birth
of Sir Arthur Conan Coyle – in 1859 in Scotland – the creator of one of the
iconic figures in literary history, Sherlock Holmes. Noted for his to-the-point comments
while solving mysteries, Holmes once pointed out that, “There is nothing
more deceptive than an obvious fact.”
Originally a physician (I always thought that he
resembled what I imagined Dr. Watson to look like), Doyle wrote his first Holmes
book, A Study in Scarlet, in 1887.
It was the first of just four novels about Holmes and Dr. Watson, but he
“filled out” the Holmes library of tales with over 50 short stories featuring the
famous detective. The Sherlock Holmes
stories are generally considered milestones in the field of crime fiction. The tales spawned many dozens (if not more)
of uses of Holmes by other writers and dozens of movies and television
programs. He also brought Deerstalker
hats and Meerschaum pipes into vogue.
Doyle, who died in 1930, also is known for writing the fictional
adventures of Professor Challenger and for propagating the mystery of the Mary
Celeste. He was a prolific writer
whose other works include fantasy and science fiction stories, plays, romances,
poetry, non-fiction and historical novels.
Among the many sayings Doyle created to become part of our lexicon is, “Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no
matter how improbable, must be the truth.”
Words to both solve mysteries and live by.
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