Arthur Conan Doyle

He was a doctor who went to sea, a historical novelist who wanted Scott’s armour, and the man who invented a detective he could not get rid of. Edinburgh, a whale ship, a failed eye practice; then medieval companies, Napoleonic cavalry, a professor who finds a world that should not exist, the Cape as a volunteer surgeon, campaigns that sprung men from wrongful conviction, and, late, a gospel of spirits and fairies that cost him the sceptics. Holmes is the habit the century kept. Doyle had already enlisted in every other age he could reach.