Important Books and Manuscripts
Christie's King Street - 19 November 2003
Important Manuscripts by the late Sir Arthur Conan Doyle are to be sold to
Benefit Charities
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was born at Picardy Place, Edinburgh


Christie's announces that six unique and important Manuscripts by the late Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle, world-famous creator of Sherlock Holmes, will be offered in
the Important Books and Manuscripts sale at King Street on 19 November. The six
manuscripts are being offered for sale by the Executors of the Estate of Dame
Jean Conan Doyle to benefit charities nominated by Sir Arthur's daughter, and
last surviving child, who died in November 1997.


"This is the largest number of Conan Doyle Manuscripts to appear on the market
for several decades, and will undoubtedly create enormous excitement," says Tom
Lamb, Head of Christie's Book Department, London. "It is a fitting tribute to
the generosity of Dame Jean that her father's manuscripts will be sold to
benefit these charities associated with the armed forces."

As a prominent member of the RAF for much of her life - Dame Jean served for
thirty years, and was the ranking woman in the RAF at the time of her retirement
- the charities to benefit from the sale will be RAF Benevolent Fund, the Not
Forgotten Association, the RAF Association, the Elizabeth Finn Trust (formerly
The Distressed Gentlefolks Aid Association), Help the Hospices, and the Royal
Star and Garter Home, Richmond. Many of these manuscripts were gifts to her from
her celebrated father, who died in 1930 when she was seventeen years old. They
include two stories from the Brigadier Gerard series, which many critics believe
superior to even Sherlock Holmes in story-telling craft. 'How Brigadier Gerard
lost his Ear' and 'Brigadier Gerard at Waterloo' were published in The Strand
Magazine in August 1902 and January 1903 respectively, and in book form in 1903
(estimates £15,000-20,000 and £30,000-50,000). Conan Doyle had studied
Napoleon's life deeply, wrote other works about him, and
was raised for the skill with which he brought that era to life in his fiction.
Gerard, a young picaresque officer in Napoleon's army, is the only truly
consistent comic figure created by Conan Doyle, and these manuscripts represent
high points in his body of work.

The collection also includes the intriguing manuscript of another pioneering
science-fiction tale from the author of The Lost World. The Maracot Deep
(estimate: £30,000-50,000) was serialized in The Strand in 1927 and published in
book form in 1929. Conan Doyle's imagination ran wild in this novel of a band of
explorers who, travelling to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean in a diving bell,
face disaster and death before being rescued by beings from Atlantis.

A Duet (with an Occasional Chorus), published in 1899, is a novel possessing a
great deal of autobiographical content. In examining the courting and the ups
and downs of a young Late-Victorian couple's newlywed life, the author drew upon
his first marriage to Louise Hawkins and their life together in Southsea,
Portsmouth, when he was a struggling young doctor turning to literature. This
manuscript (estimate: £30,000-50,000) was bound up by the author as a present
for his second wife, Jean Leckie (Dame Jean Conan Doyle's mother), whom the
author married in 1907 after his first wife's death.

Two important pieces of militaria by Conan Doyle will be also be offered at
Christie's. A poignant 3½ page poem titled 'Ypres, September 1915,' dated
October 10th of that year of The Great War was published in The Queen's Gift
Book in December 1915 to benefit war charity work, before being collected in the
author's The Guards Came Through and Other Poems in 1919. The 13 page article
titled 'A Glimpse of the Army,' dated 12th May 1900, was published in The Strand
later that year and is based on Conan Doyle's experiences and observations in
South Africa as a doctor doing dangerous volunteer work for the British Army
during the Boer War.


Dame Jean Conan Doyle (1912-1997) was an extraordinary person brought up in the
literary milieu of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. She was devoted to her father, and
accompanied her parents on tours of the United States, Australia, and Africa
during the 1920s. She enlisted in the RAF in 1938, spent World War II as an
officer in intelligence work, and continued in the service after the war,
eventually rising to the rank of Air Commandant and the post of Director of the
Women's Royal Air Force. She was also Aide de Camp to the Queen, and a C.B.E.
Following her retirement from the RAF, she became Lady Bromet as the wife of Air
Vice Marshal Sir Geoffrey Bromet, RAF (Ret.). In later years she was closely
involved with charitable work and with the founding of the Arthur Conan Doyle
Society. She was an Honorary Member of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London,
and one of the first women to become a member of The Baker Street Irregulars, in
the United States.




Manraviel


"I would have followed you, my Brother, my Captain, my King!!"
-----Boromir (FotR)

"When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains,
however improbable, must be the truth"
-----Sherlock Holmes (BLAN)











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