Arthur Conan Doyle’s original handwritten manuscript to the classic Sherlock Holmes story The Adventure of the Dancing Men has sold for $312,500.
That’s significantly lower than the $500,000 estimate. It places it in the same ballpark as the manuscript to another Holmes story, The Adventure of Black Peter (1904), which made $318,000 in 2014.
Both of these stories are from later in the canon, after Conan Doyle reluctantly resurrected the great detective. While Conan Doyle himself ranked the Dancing Men the third best Holmes outing in a Strand Magazine poll in 1927, the close result indicates that around $300,000 is the going rate for one of these later stories.
It’s likely the manuscript to the most famous early stories (The Hound of the Baskervilles or A Study in Scarlet for example) would break the $500,000 mark.
<figcaption>The Adventure of the Dancing Men was one of Conan Doyle's personal favourites (Image: Heritage Auctions)</figcaption></figure>
The text of the document includes Conan Doyle’s own notes at various points throughout, as well as his drawing of the Dancing Men cipher that plays a central role in the story.
Conan Doyle originally donated the text to a 1918 Red Cross charity auction where it made £10.10s, a sum equivalent to around $757 today.
There was also a letter from George Washington as Commander in Chief of the Continental Armies dated October 3, 1799.
It reads in full: "Sir: I expect that Col. [Moses] Hazen will be at or near Hartford on his march to join this Army. You will be pleased to forward this to him wherever he may be. As it is of consequence I am to request that you will lose no time in giving it a conveyance to Col. Hazen."
Washington had tasked Hazen with building a road into Quebec to facilitate a second attempt at an invasion of Canada, although this would not ultimately come to pass. The letter made $20,000. While documents in Washington's hand aren’t particularly rare, they are in very high demand.
</p>
</div><!-- .entry-content -->
<footer class=)
Posted in: Auction Results, Books & Manuscripts
