Arthur Conan Doyle Trivia
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59 free Arthur Conan Doyle trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Arthur Conan Doyle trivia quiz is about the man rather than the detective: the Edinburgh doctor who wrote A Study in Scarlet in three weeks, sold it for £25, grew to hate his creation, threw him off a waterfall and was forced to bring him back. The easy questions cover the birthplace, the profession, the university teacher who inspired Holmes, the magazine that made him rich, the knighthood and the friendship with Houdini. From there it moves through a strange life: the Arctic whaler, the failed eye practice, the goalkeeping alias, the MCC cricket wicket of W. G. Grace, the bodybuilding contest he judged, the Boer War hospital, two failed runs for Parliament and the wrongly convicted men he cleared. The harder end covers the Cottingley Fairies, the seances, the Piltdown suspicion, the Congo pamphlet, the Crimes Club, the ski article that sold Switzerland to the British, the house he helped design and the epitaph on his grave in the New Forest. Every answer was checked against Doyle's encyclopaedia entry before publishing and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. For the stories themselves, our Sherlock Holmes quiz is the natural next stop.
30 of 59 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which city was Arthur Conan Doyle born in 1859?
Edinburgh
Edinburgh honours its native son with a statue not of Doyle but of Sherlock Holmes, in Picardy Place near the house where he was born.
Q 02What was Doyle's profession before he became a full-time writer?
Physician
Doyle was a physician who took his MD in 1885 with a thesis on tabes dorsalis, a nerve disease caused by untreated syphilis.
Q 03How was 'Conan' recorded in Arthur Conan Doyle's baptism entry?
As a given name
His baptism entry lists Conan as a given name and Michael Conan as his godfather; he began using Conan as a sort of surname after school.
Q 04Why was the Doyle family split up and housed with different families in 1864?
His father's growing alcoholism
His father's growing alcoholism later saw Charles Altamont Doyle committed to asylums, and he died at the Crichton Royal in Dumfries in 1893.
Q 05Which Jesuit school in Lancashire did Doyle attend until 1875?
Stonyhurst College
Doyle studied at Stonyhurst College from age nine to sixteen, and later said he was not unhappy there but had no fond memories of it.
Q 06On what kind of vessel did Doyle serve as ship's doctor in 1880?
A Greenland whaler
Doyle was surgeon on the Greenland whaler Hope of Peterhead, which met the Eira expedition before it went on to name Cape Flora in Franz Josef Land.
Q 07Which real maritime mystery did Doyle's 'J. Habakuk Jephson's Statement' popularise, with invented details that stuck?
The Mary Celeste
Doyle's story renamed the Mary Celeste the 'Marie Celeste', and its reach left many people believing that was the ship's real name.
Q 08In which town did Doyle set up an unsuccessful medical practice in 1882, arriving with less than £10?
Southsea, Portsmouth
Doyle's practice in Southsea, Portsmouth, never took off, and while waiting for patients he went back to writing fiction, including his first Holmes novel.
Q 09Which medical specialism did Doyle try, and fail, to master in Vienna in 1891?
Ophthalmology
Doyle gave up ophthalmology in Vienna because he couldn't follow the German medical terms, and spent the rest of his stay ice skating with his wife.
Q 10How long did it take Doyle to write A Study in Scarlet?
Three weeks
Doyle wrote it in under three weeks at 27, and it introduced Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson to readers.
Q 11How much did Ward Lock pay Doyle for all rights to his first Holmes novel?
£25
Ward Lock paid just £25 for all rights, and the story then waited a year before appearing in Beeton's Christmas Annual.
Q 12Which of Doyle's university teachers was the chief model for Sherlock Holmes?
Joseph Bell
Joseph Bell could diagnose patients before they opened their mouths, and Doyle wrote to him, 'It is most certainly to you that I owe Sherlock Holmes.'
Q 13Which illustrator first drew Sherlock Holmes in a deerstalker, a cap Doyle's stories never name?
Sidney Paget
Sidney Paget first drew the deerstalker for 'The Boscombe Valley Mystery' in 1891, where Doyle's text gives Holmes only a 'close-fitting cloth cap'.
Q 21Under what pseudonym did Doyle play in goal for an amateur football club?
A. C. Smith
As 'A. C. Smith', Doyle kept goal for an amateur football club, and he later played ten first-class cricket matches for the MCC.
Q 22Doyle's single first-class cricket wicket for the MCC was which legendary batsman?
W. G. Grace
Doyle's only first-class wicket was W. G. Grace, and he wrote a poem about it; his highest first-class score was 43, against London County.
Q 23Which cricket side, captained by Doyle, also included the creators of Jeeves and Winnie-the-Pooh?
The Authors XI
The Authors XI played from 1899 to 1912 with Doyle as captain, and A. A. Milne was reputed to be its best fielder.
Q 14Where did the monthly Sherlock Holmes short stories appear from 1891, making Doyle one of the best-paid writers?
The Strand Magazine
The Strand Magazine made Holmes a sensation, and it reportedly lost more than 20,000 subscribers when Doyle killed him off.
Q 15In Doyle's 'A Scandal in Bohemia', which opera singer outwits Sherlock Holmes?
Irene Adler
Irene Adler, disguised as a young man, follows Holmes home and wishes him good night, then leaves England before he can catch her.
Q 16At which Swiss waterfall did Doyle send Holmes and Moriarty to their apparent deaths?
The Reichenbach Falls
Doyle chose the Reichenbach Falls after seeing them on a Swiss holiday, and nearby Meiringen now has a Sherlock Holmes museum.
Q 17Which 1901 novel was the first Holmes novel since his apparent death?
The Hound of the Baskervilles
The Hound of the Baskervilles is set before Holmes's 'death', and only in 1903 did 'The Empty House' reveal that he had faked his fall.
Q 18Which collection holds the last twelve of Doyle's 56 Holmes stories?
The Case-Book
The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes came out in 1927, 34 years after Doyle had tried to kill the detective off in 'The Final Problem'.
Q 19Which irascible scientist did Doyle create for The Lost World in 1912?
Professor Challenger
Professor Challenger, a burly zoologist with a volatile temper, leads the expedition, and the book's success made 'lost world' a whole adventure subgenre.
Q 20Doyle's humorous stories about a Napoleonic soldier feature which character?
Brigadier Gerard
Brigadier Gerard is a vain hussar sure he is France's bravest soldier, and Doyle drew partly on the memoirs of the real cavalryman Marbot.
Q 24In 1901 Doyle judged Eugen Sandow's world-first major competition in which sport?
Bodybuilding
Sandow's bodybuilding contest filled the Royal Albert Hall so completely that people were turned away at the door.
Q 25Doyle was invited in 1909 to referee which heavyweight championship fight in Reno, Nevada?
James Jeffries v Jack Johnson
After Doyle declined, promoter Tex Rickard refereed the James Jeffries v Jack Johnson fight himself.
Q 26What is Doyle's 1894 magazine account of crossing a pass from Davos credited with popularising?
Skiing in Switzerland
Doyle skied from Davos into Arosa with two local guides, and his account of the trip drew British skiing fans to Switzerland.
Q 27What was the name of Doyle's first wife, whom he married in 1885 and who suffered from tuberculosis?
Louisa Hawkins
Louisa Hawkins, known as 'Touie', had two children with Doyle and died of tuberculosis in 1906.
Q 28Which American actor co-wrote the 1899 play Sherlock Holmes with Doyle and starred as the detective?
William Gillette
William Gillette cabled Doyle 'May I marry Holmes?', and Doyle replied that he could marry him, murder him or do anything he liked to him.
Q 29During which war did Doyle serve as a volunteer doctor at a field hospital in Bloemfontein?
The Second Boer War
During the Second Boer War Doyle wrote a pamphlet defending Britain's conduct, and he believed it was the reason he was knighted.
Q 30Which monarch knighted Doyle in the 1902 Coronation Honours?
Edward VII
Edward VII's 1902 Coronation Honours made 'Arthur Conan Doyle, MD' a Knight Bachelor.