Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) was a Scottish physician and writer. Although he wrote a number of series, such as his Professor Challenger stories, he is by far best known as the creator of Sherlock Holmes. In later life he gained notoriety for his belief in spiritualism and the Cottingley Fairies. "His Last Bow" is the penultimate anthology of Sherlock Holmes short stories. It is most notable for its inclusion of the title story, which not only gives an account of Holmes' activities at the beginning of World War I, but is also one of the few Sherlock Holmes stories not narrated by Watson.