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                             Arthur Conan Doyle


    Arthur Conan Doyle was born in the capital of Scotland, Edinburgh.  His
father, Charles E. Doyle, was an artist and architect by profession, but  he
worked as a clerk in an office. The father died young and  the  Doyles  were
very poor.
    Arthur’s mother was a very good  story-teller  and  he  remembered  her
fantastic stories all his life. The talent of  story-telling  was  inherited
by Arthur from his mother and it helped him as a  writer.During  his  school
years he  read  much,  and  he  often  told  his  school  friends  long  and
interesting stories, getting cakes and sweets for that.
    After leaving school Conan  Doyle  became  a  student  of  the  medical
faculty at the university of Edinburgh. In this third  year  of  studies  he
went  as  a  ship  doctor  to  the  Arctic  and  upon  graduating  from  the
university, he again went in a ship to western Africa.
    He began his medical practice in a small English town  Southsea,  where
he spent eight years. In 1887, he published his  first  detective  story  “A
study in Scarlet”. Its main characters were Sherlock Holmes and Dr.  Watson,
and they became the most  popular  characters  of  a  great  many  of  Conan
Doyle’s stories.
    “A scandal in Bohemia” opened a collection of detective  stories  under
the title “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes”. The story  was  published  in
1891 and soon after that Baker  Street  became  the  well-known  address  of
Sherlock Holmes.
    The readers asked for more and more stories about Sherlock  Holmes  and
for two years Conan Doyle wrote them.  When  he  had  written  about  twenty
stories with Sherlock Holmes as the main  detective,  he  was  so  tired  of
these stories that he decided “ to kill Sherlock Holmes”. He wrote a  story,
which he named “Holmes’s last case” (1893). In this story Holmes  was  killd
during his struggle with Professor Moriarty. The  writer  hoped  that  after
that he could begin writing other books.
    But the readers did not wish to lose their favourite character and  ten
years later the famous detective appeared again. In 1901 –1902 one of  Conan
Doyle’s best stories “The hound of the Baskervilles” was published.
    In 1891 Conan Doyle gave up his medical work and devoted all  his  time
to his literaty activity. He also travelled much.  He  visited  Europe,  the
USA and Egypt. In Norway he met Jerome K. Jerome, who wrote about that  fact
in one of his books.
    Beside detective stories, Conan Doyle also wrote historic  novels,  war
books and an anticolonial book about the Belgian Congo.  His  two  fantastic
stories “The lost world” (1912) and “The Poisoned Belt”  (1913)  were  quite
successful.
    All his life Conan Doyle liked sports, he skied played golf and went in
for boxing.
    He died in 1930, After his death, the famous detective Sherlock Holmes,
together with his friend Dr. Watson, continued  to  live  on  the  pages  of
Conan Doyle’s books. They are amound the  favourite  characters  of  English
literature.
    Tourists coming to London always go to visit Bakers street to  see  the
house where Sherlock Holmes lived.



Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

   The world is rich  in  remarkable  authors,  but  I  think  that  Anton
Pavlovich Chekhov was one of the greatest authorities. He is my  favourite
writer. In my opinion, he is the greatest  Russian  dramatist  and  short-
story writer. I’m never tired of  reading  and  rereading  his  plays  and
humorous stories.
   Chekhov was born in 1860 in Taganrog. In 1879 he went to Moscow,  where
he studies medicine. Though  he  practised  little  as  a  doctor  in  his
lifetime, he was prouder of his medical  knowledge  than  of  his  writing
talent.
   While in college, Chekhov wrote humorous sketches for comic  papers  to
support his family. He collected the  best  ones  into  a  volume,  Motley
Stories, in 1886. The book attracted the attention of the publisher of the
Novoje Vremja, Russia’s largest paper, and Chekhov was asked to contribute
stories regularly.
   Chekhov, as an established writer, was able to develop a style  of  his
own. Though he never gave up writing comic stories, he began working in  a
more serious vein. In 1887 Ivanov, his first play, established Chekhov  as
a dramatist. From then on, he concentrated on writing plays,  as  well  as
short stories.
   Chekhov was seriously ill. He had tuberculosis and knew what it  meant.
By 1892 his health was so bad that he was afraid to spend  another  winter
in Moscow. He bought a small estate near a  village  Melikhovo,  50  miles
from Moscow. He spent 5 years there, and those were happy years  in  spite
of the illness. He wrote some of his best stories  there,  including  Ward
No.6, several well-known one-act comedies and two of his serious  dramatic
masterpieces, The Seagull and Uncle Vanya.
   The Seagull was first staged in the Alexandrinsky Theatre in  Petersburg.
It was a complete failure because of the dull and clumsy production. It  was
a cruel blow to Chekhov. However, the play  was  successfully  performed  as
the first production of the Moscow  Art  Theatre  in  1898.  From  then  on,
Chekhov was closely connected with this theatre and with its  founder,  K.S.
Stanislavsky. In 1901 he married an Art Theatre actress, Olga  Knipper,  who
acted in his play The Three Sisters the same year.
   Chekhov’s health went from bad  to  worse  and  he  had  to  spent  the
remaining years in the Crimea and other health spas.
   The Cherry Orchard, his last play, was produced in 1904. Soon after the
first night Chekhov died. He was 44.
   Chekhov had an immense influence on the 20th  century  drama.  Besides,
several generations of writers both  in  Russia  and  abroad  studied  and
imitated Chekhov to perfect their own literary style.
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