Arthur Conan Doyle

Arthur Conan Doyle was a British writer and physician born in Edinburgh in 1859 and died in Crowborough in 1930. He is best known for his four novels and fifty-six short stories about the fictional consulting detective Sherlock Holmes and his assistant Dr. Watson. These works are milestones in crime fiction, making him one of the most famous and well-paid authors of his time. He also wrote The Lost World, which gave its name to a subgenre of speculative fiction.

Doyle was a prolific writer who produced over 200 stories and articles, as well as works for the stage. He served as a doctor and surgeon on two sea voyages before establishing a medical practice. His time at sea inspired early stories, and he published his first Sherlock Holmes work in 1887. Although he initially ambivalently killed off Holmes, public outcry led to the character's return. His works remain widely read and adapted in the twenty-first century.

Reading Arthur Conan Doyle in translation

The reader already reads English, the language Arthur Conan Doyle wrote in. On Paralelo they read The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in the original with a German or French translation beside them, using the English they know as the anchor while they learn the other language. Doyle writes in a clear, factual register with precise descriptions and lively dialogue, characteristic of late nineteenth-century crime fiction. The vocabulary is accessible, and the sentence structure is straightforward, making the text easy to follow. This alignment phrase by phrase allows the reader to focus on specific words without losing the narrative flow. Start with The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, the shortest book in our catalogue, which takes about 475 minutes to read.