In 1887, Scottish author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle created one of the most famous fictional detectives in the world: Sherlock Holmes. Originally envisaged by Doyle as a one-off, Holmes quickly became one of the most important literary characters of all time. Armed with extraordinary powers of acute deduction and observation to solve crime, the super sleuth with a penchant for pipes and deerstalker caps captured the imagination of the public around the world. But Doyle was dismissive of his music-loving gumshoe, his mind instead engaged in law and medicine. In fact, the author even tried to kill off his private investigator a few years later!
So, what prompted Conan Doyle to put pen to paper, and who was the inspiration behind Sherlock Holmes? Click through for clues and a history of the mystery.