Joseph Bell, whose uncanny powers of deductive reasoning gave him the ability to sometimes diagnose patients from a cursory glance rather than an extended physical examination. One idea he had for a protagonist was based on a professor he had in medical school, Dr. He had written some fiction before, but with the extra time on his hands he began to write more and more. After setting up shop with another doctor, and later a private practice, he found himself bored while waiting in between appointments for patients. He later traveled to Vienna for additional medical training and became an eye doctor. He dabbled in political writings for a while, as well as writing for medical journals. Upon his return to England, he wrote what he called a long pamphlet on the situation to bring to the public view what he himself had seen there. After finishing medical school, he traveled to Africa in 1885 serving as a ship’s doctor, where he learned firsthand of the atrocities taking place in the Belgian Congo. The two-paragraph bio of Conan Doyle in the textbook wasn’t sufficient for me to use for class so I did some research on him and learned more about his fascinating life, of which Sherlock Holmes was merely a chapter.īorn and raised in Scotland, like my maternal grandparents, he studied medicine. So much can be gleaned from the author’s background, the time period in which he or she lived and wrote, who his or her influences were, and who he or she influenced in return. I strongly feel that to study a piece of literature one must study the author first. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has fascinated me since my first year of teaching when I found “Speckled Band” in the 8 th grade literature anthology textbook. The Hound of the Baskervilles never fails to intrigue the students, from the moment we find out the true identity of Miss Beryl Stapleton, to Sir Henry Baskerville’s tension-filled “solitary” walk across the moor, Sherlock Holmes’ plan to set a trap with human bait to ensnare the killer. First we read his short story, “The Adventure of the Speckled Band”, which serves as a warm-up to third quarter when we take on one of his four full-length novels featuring his glorious masterpiece of a character, Sherlock Holmes. It’s halfway through the second quarter of the school year and I’ve finally reached my favorite part of 8 th grade literature, the beginning of an extended unit on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
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