"Born in Scotland to an artistic Irish family, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle became the archetypal Englishman and advocate of the British empire. With an alcoholic father and dominating mother, he rejected his family's Roman Catholicism. Seeking salvation in the scientific certainties of medicine, he became a doctor. But he proved inadequate: he needed scope for his imagination in writing, and for his repressed religious feelings in spiritualism." "The result was a fascinating personality and strong individualist, someone who, despite the trappings of convention, was prepared to take on the establishment in innumerable struggles for justice. Never content with Sherlock Holmes, Conan Doyle was also a prolific writer of horror stories, histories and poetry. He was a sportsman, politician, clubman, polemicist, and much more besides." "With access to vast amounts of previously hidden archival material, Andrew Lycett shows the agonies, struggles and humanity of this great author as never before."--BOOK JACKET.

Includes index.