Over the course of this year, I've written three short essays about Arthur Conan Doyle for inclusion in the Sherlock's Spotlight Gazette published by The Beacon Society for young readers. As I begin work on the final essay for this 2023, I decided to post the previous three to this site, beginning with, appropriately, "The Beginnings of a Storyteller."
About Arthur, the Author
Glimpses into the life of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator
of Sherlock Holmes
The Beginnings of a Storyteller
Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, first wrote a mystery about them in 1886. He was twenty-seven years old. He authored many stories and created many characters before Holmes and Watson. His storytelling actually began when he was a young boy living in a boarding school.
At the age of nine, he left his family in Scotland, traveling by train alone, to live in England at a school called Hodder. He lived at Hodder for two years, and then moved to a nearby school for older boys called Stonyhurst, for another five years. During those seven years, he only saw his family during summer break. The school did not have other breaks during the year. Except for the six-week vacation in the summer, the boys never went home.
He was sometimes lonely, but he discovered that he had what he called “some literary streak” that was not common to the other boys in his school. He created stories about heroes and their adventures, which he shared. The other students were thrilled by Arthur’s storytelling.
An audience of young boys would sit on the floor, their chins on their hands, and listen as Arthur, standing on a desk before them, would tell stories until his voice grew husky. Remember: the school had no televisions, no computers, no internet, and no telephones. For them, the story time with Arthur was like going to a movie.
He learned to tell a story in an entertaining way from his mother. Mary Doyle loved to read, and she had a natural gift for telling Arthur and his brother and sisters thrilling tales about the characters in the books she read. “In my early childhood, as far back as I can remember anything at all,” he wrote many years later, “the vivid stories which she would tell me stand out so clearly that they obscure the real facts of my life.”
During the summer holidays, he would read many books he borrowed from the small library near his home. He read so many so quickly that the librarians had to tell his mother that Arthur was limited to exchanging books only twice a day! When he went back to school, he had many more adventure stories he could share. The reading inspired him to create his own stories for his school friends.
Arthur’s storytelling gave him an added bonus: treats! His schoolmates enjoyed his stories so much they would at times bribe Arthur to keep talking by giving him pastries or apples. The students ate very plain meals. For breakfast, they had a bit of dry bread and hot watered milk. For lunch (they called it dinner), there was a little beef and fish on Fridays. For a snack in the afternoon, they had dry bread again with an odd brown drink that was called “beer” because of its color, but it was not really beer. For supper, they had hot milk again, bread, butter, and sometimes potatoes. A treat such as a pastry or an apple was rare and special. The boys found his stories to be worth the price.
Arthur Conan Doyle was on his way to becoming the storyteller who would later entertain millions of people.
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