Arthur Conan Doyle IQ

Arthur Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh in 1859, studied with Jesuits and qualified as a doctor at the University of Edinburgh. While building a medical practice in Southsea he wrote A Study in Scarlet (1887), introducing Sherlock Holmes. Holmes made him famous; he also wrote historical novels and The Lost World. He campaigned against miscarriages of justice and, in later life, devoted himself to spiritualism. He died in 1930.

No figure exists. LifeScore lists about 140 as an editorial marker, range 125 to 155. It rests on a medical degree, a large and varied literary output and real detective work in two criminal cases, balanced against his belief in obvious hoaxes.

Partly. Conan Doyle credited Dr Joseph Bell, a surgeon at Edinburgh, who amazed students by deducing patients' jobs and travels from small details. Bell's method is the core of Holmes's.

He believed the Cottingley Fairies photographs taken by two girls in 1917 were genuine and wrote a book about them in 1922. The cousins admitted in the 1980s that most of the photos were faked with paper cut-outs.

Yes. The magician Harry Houdini befriended him but spent years exposing fraudulent mediums. After a 1922 séance in which Lady Conan Doyle claimed to channel Houdini's mother, Houdini said the messages were impossible, partly because they were written in English, which his mother did not speak. Their friendship ended in public quarrels.

Conan Doyle could write rigorous deduction and still fail to apply it to his own beliefs. That gap is a lesson: intelligence measured on a test does not guarantee critical thinking about things we want to believe.

What supports it

• He earned a medical degree from Edinburgh in 1881 and a doctorate in 1885.
• His campaign for George Edalji helped create the Court of Criminal Appeal.
• His spiritualist writings document his beliefs.

What it cannot prove

• Writing a clever detective does not prove the writer reasons the same way.
• His spiritualism shows how belief can override evidence.
• An editorial marker is a comparison aid built from achievement, not a measurement, and two careful readers could place it ten points apart.

Arthur Conan Doyle's IQ is represented here by a retrospective estimate of 140, not a verified test result. Arthur Conan Doyle is best known for exceptional deductive plotting. The useful question is what the surviving evidence shows, not whether a precise modern score can be recovered.

Energetic, chivalrous and credulous. A sportsman and campaigner whose logic and belief pulled in different directions.

The dominant archetype here is The Storyteller. This archetype shapes decision patterns: what feels natural, what creates friction, and what blind spots tend to emerge.

Estimated IQ is 140. This is a rough estimate based on documented accomplishments and contemporary accounts, not a literal measurement.

He killed Holmes off in 1893 and was forced by public demand to bring him back.

Arthur Conan Doyle's estimate of 140 falls in the genius level IQ range. Want your own number rather than Arthur's? Take the free IQ test or the quick IQ test. See what an IQ of 140 means, place it on the IQ chart or check how rare it is with the IQ rarity calculator.