So great is the influence of Sherlock Holmes, that only the truest of the great detective's fans know that his creator, Arthur Conan Doyle, thought far less of Holmes than he did of his other creative efforts. For Doyle was not a stock-in-trade mystery writer, a genre that was still finding its legs. He certainly had not "invented" the genre of detective fiction, a privilege that belonged to Edgar Allan Poe and his own creation, master detective August Dupin. Although Doyle claimed that Holmes had been modeled on his medical school teacher, Dr. Joseph Bell, the writings of Edgar Allan Poe, as well as Emile Gaboriau, Charles Dickens, Eugene Vidocq, and Wilkie Collins, were what provided Doyle with the basic elements for building his mythic detective.

Arthur Conan Doyle was born on May 22, 1859 in Edinburgh, the eldest son of Charles Altimont Doyle...