Arthur Conan Doyle 1894–1899

This chapter shows Arthur Conan Doyle busy on many different fronts: looking after his tubercular wife Touie; the setting up of a large household in Surrey; adventures as a journalist with the British army in Egypt; always writing. He struck a deal with American actor/playwright William Gillette for a stage version of Sherlock Holmes, which was hugely successful and lucrative. While Touie was confined to a sick room, Doyle fell in love with a much younger woman. When war broke out with the Boer Republics, Doyle championed the uitlanders, the foreigners in the Transvaal. His sense of fair play and his patriotism motivated a desire to enlist; turned down for soldiering, he secured a post as physician with Langman’s Field Hospital.