Conan Doyle was knighted in 1902, but not because of his Sherlock Holmes novels - it was in fact due to his work defending Britain's involvement the Boer War. His books - The War in South Africa: Its Cause and Conduct and The Great Boer War - impressed King Edward VII so much that Conan Doyle was made a "sir". Interestingly, however, some commentators believed the King was such a huge fan of Sherlock Holmes that he knighted Conan Doyle in order to convince the writer to pen further stories!