Rare Sherlock Holmes handwritten story on show

A rare handwritten manuscript of an original Sherlock Holmes adventure will be on display in Edinburgh later this week.

By Claire McKim Tuesday, 24th November 2015, 11:32 am

The 1924 manuscript will go on display this Friday.

The National Library of Scotland will give history fans a close-up encounter with The Adventure of the Illustrious Client - a 38-page manuscript handwritten by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in 1924.

It is one of very few Holmes manuscripts still remaining in Britain and was considered by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to be one of his best.

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It has classic Holmes ingredients: a dastardly middle European aristocrat; an archetypal English rose, to whom the villain is engaged and a secret “illustrious client” wishing to engage Holmes’s services.

The manuscript was written by Conan Doyle in 1924

The manuscript was bequeathed to the Library by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s daughter, Dame Jean Conan Doyle and it passed in to the possession of the Library in 2006.

Previous to that it had been kept in a safe deposit box at Coutts’ Bank in the Strand (a street name with strong Holmesian resonances). T

he gift acknowledged the importance of Edinburgh and Scotland in the life of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who was born in the city in 1859 and went on to study medicine there.

It will be on display as part of Book Week Scotland with another original manuscript The Haunted Grange of Goresthorpe which is thought to be one of the first stories he ever wrote.

Sherlock Holmes in Scottish writer Arthur Conan Doyle's most famous creation

The ghost story is believed to date from around 1877 when the young Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was eighteen and it was never published in his lifetime. It is evidence of early experimentation by a writer who went on to become one of the world’s most popular authors.

“Sherlock Holmes is one of London’s best known fictional figures and his creator is one of Edinburgh’s most famous literary sons,” said Sally Harrower curator of modern literary manuscripts at the National Library. “We are delighted to be able to offer people the chance to see these manuscripts in celebration of Book Week Scotland.”

They will be on free display in the boardroom of the Library’s main building on Friday November 27 on George IV Bridge Edinburgh between 12.30-2pm.

Later at 6pm, Kirkcaldy-born Val McDermid, one of today’s biggest names in crime writing, will be discussing her literary inspirations with critic and reviewer Stuart Kelly.