‘Boxing is in the blood’: Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle and the prize ring

The author of a new novel about the famed detective explores a little-known facet of Holmes’s creator What do Sherlock Holmes and Arthur Conan Doyle have to do with boxing? More than you may think. Doyle, who created Holmes, was a boxing enthusiast who boxed a bit and wrote extensively about the sport. Doyle stood 6ft tall and weighed in the neighborhood of 200lb. He began sparring while a medical student at the University of Edinburgh and described himself as “a fair average amateur”. “McMur...

By Thomas Hauser