He created the detective Sherlock Holmes and his assistant Dr Watson, who first appeared in A Study in Scarlet 1887 and featured in a number of subsequent stories, including The Hound of the Baskervilles 1902. Conan Doyle also wrote historical romances (Micah Clarke 1889 and The White Company 1891) and the scientific romance The Lost World 1912. Born in Edinburgh, he qualified as a doctor, and during the second South African War (or Boer War) was senior physician of a field hospital. His Sherlock Holmes character featured in several books, including The Sign of Four 1889 and The Valley of Fear 1915, as well as in volumes of short stories, first published in the Strand Magazine. In his later years Conan Doyle became a spiritualist.
