In 1889, the editor of Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine invited Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Oscar Wilde to a formal dinner to commission new stories. Doyle was incredibly intimidated by Wilde's legendary wit and feared the evening would be a disaster. Instead, they got along famously. However, the internet loves the contrast of what happened next: Wilde went home and wrote the elegant, philosophical masterpiece The Picture of Dorian Gray, while Doyle went home and wrote The Sign of Four, which features Sherlock Holmes casually injecting cocaine out of sheer boredom and getting into a fistfight.
