The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes of the Speckled Band" as his overall favourite. Arthur Conan Doyle began writing while studying medicine at university in the late 1870s, and had his first short story, "The Mystery of Sasassa Valley", published in September 1879. After eight years, "A Study in Scarlet", Doyle's first Sherlock Holmes story, was published by Ward Lock & Co. The novel was well received, but Doyle was paid little for it, and despite a sequel novel, "The Sign of the Four", which was published in Lipincott's Monthly Magazine, he shifted his focus to short stories. In early 1891, the first editor of "The
Adrian Conan Doyle Adventures of Sherlock Holmes". Sir Arthur's widow Jean chose a spiritualist, the Rev. John Lamond, to write an authorised life of him, "Arthur Conan Doyle: A Memoir" (John Murray, 1931). The memoir emphasised his paranormal interests but was not what readers wanted, so after their mother's death Adrian and Denis grudgingly allowed Hesketh Pearson to write "Conan Doyle: His Life and Art" (Methuen, 1943). But Pearson's book offended Adrian and Denis by saying that the secret of their father's success was that he was the "common man". Adrian threatened criminal proceedings against Pearson's "fakeography", and wrote an article in protest,