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[[File: Sherlock One.jpg |200px|thumbnail|left|A drawing of Sherlock Holmes]]

The first Sherlock Holmes story was ''A Study in Scarlet'' (1887), and it proved a minor success. Later stories soon followed, and they became a sensation and made their author a celebrity. Soon the British public had an insatiable demand for the stories of Conan-Doyle.<ref>Edwards, Owen Dudley, The Quest for Sherlock Holmes: A Biographical Study of Arthur Conan Doyle (Edinburgh: Mainstream, 1983), p 114</ref>

==Why did Arthur Conan Doyle kill Sherlock Holmes?==

Other television shows and movies have also been clearly inspired by Holmes. Two of the more interesting are Zero Effect (starring Ben Stiller and Bill Pullman) and the television medical drama House (starring Hugh Laurie, Robert Sean Leonard and Omar Epps). Each of these shows renamed the Holmes character, but sought inspiration from the unique characteristics of Holmes.

[[File: Sherlock Three.jpg|200px|thumb|left|The cover of the Hounds of the Baskervilles]]

There are a few references to Holmes's early life. It appears that he was born in the 1850s and that he came from the English gentry and that his mother may have been part-French. It has been speculated that Holmes, who never married, had a cruel governess in his youth, and this is why he never had a lasting relationship with a female. Sherlock had an older brother called Mycroft, a genius who worked for the government and is often referred to in the stories. The future detective went to Oxford, and it was here that he acquired his formidable powers of deduction. He became an amateur detective after he visited a university friend during his summer vacation.

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At the time of the stories’ publication, many critics came to believe that Holmes was inspired not by a real-life detective but by fictional ones. Some critics believe that Conan-Doyle was inspired by the works of the English mystery writer Wilkie Collins. However, undoubtedly, one of the main influences on creating the world’s most famous fictional detective was Edgar Alan Poe (1809-1849). He created the world’s first fictional detective, Auguste Dupin. He is a very logical and rational thinker who used reason to solve impossible mysteries.