
'Tut, you speak as if an army could charge in and charge out again like your regiment of hussars. If Soult were here with thirty thousand men--but he will not come. I sent for you, however, Colonel Gerard, to say that I have a very singular and important expedition which I intend to place under your direction.' Editorial Reviews Conan Doyle is another one of those guys who wrote a ton of stuff but who is remembered now only for his Holmes/Watson mysteries. The 17 stories collected here follow the title character, a swaggering soldier in Napoleon's army famous for his bravery on the field of battle and his romantic forays with women. If historical adventure circulates in your library, throw this into the mix. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information. About The Author: About The Author: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh in 1859. After nine years in Jesuit schools, he went to Edinburgh University, receiving a degree in medicine in 1881. He then became an eye specialist in Southsea, with a distressing lack of success. Hoping to augment his income, he wrote his first story, A Study in Scarlet. His detective, Sherlock Holmes, was modeled in part after Dr. Joseph Bell of the Edinburgh Infirmary, a man with spectacular powers of observation, analysis, and inference. Conan Doyle may have been influenced also by his admiration for the neat plots of Gaboriau and for Poe's detective, M. Dupin. After several rejections, the story was sold to a British publisher for ??25, and thus was born the world's best-known and most-loved fictional detective. Fifty-nine more Sherlock Holmes adventures followed. Once, wearying of Holmes, his creator killed him off, but was forced by popular demand to resurrect him. Sir Arthur -- he had been knighted for this defense of the... Name: Arthur Conan Doyle Also Known As: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Date of Birth: May 22, 1859 Place of Birth: Edinburgh, Scotland Date of Death: July 7, 1930 Place of Death: Crowborough, Sussex, Engl