Elementary my dear Watson...‘£1m’ Holmes manuscript

THE handwritten manuscript for one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s first Sherlock Holmes mysteries could fetch a record £1 million at auction this summer.

The Edinburgh-born author wrote The Sign of Four in 1889 as the second novel featuring the famous detective and Dr Watson.

Published the following year, the book has since been dramatised for the screen numerous times, with Peter Cushing, Peter O’Toole and Benedict Cumberbatch among the stars portraying Holmes.

The 160-page bound manuscript, signed twice by the author, will go under the hammer at Sotheby’s in New York on June 26.

Considered ‘the most significant Conan Doyle manuscript ever to be auctioned’, it is estimated at £650,000 to £1million.

Originally titled The Sign of The Four, the novel saw the return of Holmes two years after the first novel, A Study in Scarlet. Conan

Doyle was commissioned to write the story by Joseph Marshall Stoddart, managing editor of the US publication Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine, over a dinner at the Langham Hotel in London, which was also attended by Oscar Wilde.

By the end of the evening, Conan Doyle had agreed to write The Sign of Four for the magazine, while Wilde committed to producing The Picture of Dorian Gray, his first and only novel.

Conan Doyle’s manuscript contains edits to ‘Americanise’ the text for publication in the US.

Richard Austin, Sotheby’s global head of books and manuscripts, said: ‘It is an exceptionally rare piece of literary history.’