“How often have I said to you that when you have
eliminated the impossible, whatever remains,
however improbable, must be the truth?”
 May 1859-July 1930
 Born in Edinburgh,
Scotland
 Physician and Writer
 Wrote stories while
waiting for patients
 Wrote 68 books
 A Study in Scarlet (1887) is the first appearance
of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.
 Sherlock Holmes was modeled after Doyle’s
university professor, Joseph Bell.
 “It is most certainly to you that I owe Sherlock
Holmes... [R]ound the centre of deduction and
inference and observation which I have heard
you inculcate I have tried to build up a man”
 Passion for definite and exact knowledge
 Believed that by examining 1000 crimes, he
would have the knowledge needed to solve the
1001 crime
 Believed the world was full of obvious things that
the no one took the time to observe
 “It is of the utmost importance in the art of
detection to be able to recognize, out of a
number of facts, which are incidental and which
are vital…..”
In this story, Dr. Watson meets Sherlock
Holmes for the first time. Together, they try to
solve a murder mystery involving the bloody
word, Rache.
 Deductive Reasoning - Deductive arguments
are attempts to show that a conclusion
necessarily follows from a set of premises or
hypotheses
 Modernism
 Forensic Science
 Revenge
 Friendship
 First description in a work of fiction of method of
problem solving
 Helped create the English Murder Mystery
Genre:
 Closed Setting – isolated house or train
 Corpse
 Circle of Suspects
 Investigating detective with superb reasoning
powers
 Introduction of deductive reasoning
 Doyle was very interested in the legal process
 Investigated two closed cases
 “Circumstantial evidence is a very tricky thing. It
may seem to point very straight to one thing, but
if you shift your own point of view a little, you may
find it pointing in an equally uncompromising
manner to something entirely different.”
 Both cases were overturned
 Consequently, Doyle’s expertise helped create
the English Court of Appeals in 1907.
 1891 - Doyle wrote to his mother and said,
 "I think of slaying Holmes... and winding him up for
good and all. He takes my mind from better
things."
 His mother responded, "You won't! You can't! You
mustn't!“
 1893 - Sherlock Holmes plunged to his death in
the story, “The Final Problem.”
 1901 - Holmes was back in The Hound of
Baskervilles
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZFdH76H1l
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