The Sign of Four Manuscript:
Sotheby's 2024 Auction

By Randall Stock, April 21, 2024

Sotheby's will offer Conan Doyle's most valuable manuscript as well as the most valuable Sherlock Holmes drawing in a June 2024 auction.

The Sign of Four manuscript - first 4 lines

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Manuscript Description

History

Manuscript Photos

Catalog & Sale Info

The Library of Rodney P. Swantko

Rodney Swantko (1940–2022) lived in the Chicago area and was a specialist in oral and maxillofacial surgery. He built a spectacular but little-known collection of rare books and manuscripts.

Swantko's collection of Sherlockiana makes up what is truly "a small but select library." It includes the most valuable Conan Doyle manuscript ever sold at auction, the most valuable Sherlock Holmes drawing, and the most valuable copy of a Holmes story not written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Manuscript of The Sign of Four
Sidney Paget Drawing "The Death of Sherlock Holmes"
The Unique Hamlet (copy VS5) by Vincent Starrett
The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (large paper edition) by Vincent Starrett
The Hound of the Baskervilles (first edition)

More details will be added to this page when Sotheby's releases further information, likely in late May or early June.

The Swantko material at Sotheby's consists of 49 lots that are expected to bring more than $4 million at auction. Besides the Sherlockian items, the sale includes:

Edgar Allan Poe's first book (one of only twelve known copies)
Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol (1843) first edition signed and inscribed two days before the official publication date
L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) first edition, first issue inscribed to a close family friend

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The Sign of Four Manuscript Description

Manuscript of The Sign of Four by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Headed on the first page as "The Sign of Four / by / A Conan Doyle," with the author's card at the top of the page. Signed on the first page, and at end as "A. Conan Doyle / Bush Villa / Southsea / England." Not dated but 1889. See photos.

Conan Doyle wrote this manuscript in brown-black ink on the rectos only of 160 pages of ledger-ruled foolscap. Sheets measure 12 3/4 x 7 7/8 inches and include revisions in ink and pencil. The first page is a fair copy provided by Conan Doyle. For details, see the history section.

Stikeman bound the manuscript in red morocco with gilt titles on the front cover reading "Original Manuscript / The Sign of the Four / By / A. Conan Doyle." It includes a frontispiece photograph of Conan Doyle that faces a title page printed in red and black.

Four autograph letters consisting of 13 pages are inlaid on endleaves and bound in with the manuscript. Conan Doyle sent the letters to J. M. Stoddart, who commissioned the novel for Lippincott's Magazine.

The first letter, dated 3 September 1889, accepts the terms of their agreement. It provides two possible titles for the story, and identifies Sherlock Holmes as the novel's main character.

The second letter, dated 1 October 1889, reported that Conan Doyle had finished the story and sent it to Lippincott's agents in London. He asks Stoddart to choose either "The Sign of the Four" or "The Problem of the Sholtos" as the story's title.

After Lippincott's published the story in their February 1890 number, Conan Doyle wrote to express his appreciation both for the overall production and for the illustration.

Dated 17 March 1890, Conan Doyle's fourth letter discusses the story's many positive reviews and mentions his forthcoming novel The White Company.

The description above is based largely on a 1996 Sotheby's catalog and will be updated when Sotheby's releases further information, likely in late May or early June.

See below for photos of the manuscript.

Conan Doyle wrote 4 Sherlock Holmes novels and 56 short stories. About two-thirds of the Holmes manuscripts still exist, although some of these include only fragments. Libraries and museums hold approximately half of the extant manuscripts. See the Census of Sherlock Holmes manuscripts.

The manuscript for the first Holmes novel, A Study in Scarlet, no longer exists, and most of manuscript for The Hound of the Baskervilles is lost.

This bound manuscript of The Sign of Four holds the record as the most valuable Conan Doyle manuscript ever sold at auction. It brought $519,500 at Sotheby's almost thirty years ago. In 2021, a single page from the manuscript of The Hound sold for $423,000.

Presale Estimate: US$800,000 - $1,200,000

For more auction details, see the catalog section below.

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History & Provenance

Conan Doyle's first Sherlock Holmes story appeared in Beeton's Christmas Annual for 1887. His next books included The Mystery of Cloomber (1888) and Micah Clarke (1889). After starting to write The White Company in August 1889, he received a dinner invitation from Joseph Marshall Stoddart, the editor of Lippincott's Monthly Magazine.

Stoddart was planning an English edition of Lippincott's and looking for English authors. His August 30, 1889 dinner at the Langham Hotel included Conan Doyle, Oscar Wilde, and a Member of Parliament. By the end of the dinner, both Conan Doyle and Oscar Wilde agreed to write novels for the magazine.

Conan Doyle would receive £100 for a story of at least 40,000 words delivered "by or before January" 1890. He wrote The Sign of the Four, the second Sherlock Holmes tale, in September. Oscar Wilde provided The Picture of Dorian Gray in April 1890.

In his 1924 autobiography, Conan Doyle remembered the dinner as "a golden evening." He particularly enjoyed Oscar Wilde's conversation, whom he felt "towered above us all." However, he conveyed a more nuanced view of Wilde in a March 1890 letter to Stoddart:

I am curious to see Oscar Wilde's novel. I hope it turns out well. Clever it is sure to be, but the art of storytelling is something more than that.

A copy of the term sheet and four letters from Conan Doyle to Stoddart are bound-in with the manuscript of The Sign of Four. Conan Doyle's first letter, written only four days after their dinner and dated September 3, provides some background on his plans:

My story will either be called "The Sign of the Six" or "The Problem of the Sholtos." You said you wanted a spicy title. I shall give Sherlock Holmes of "A Study in Scarlet" something else to unravel.

Conan Doyle changed this title concept by the time he wrote page 23 of his manuscript. As shown below, he initially refers to "three crosses in a line" and "the sign of three." He later struck that version, inserting "four" crosses, referring to it as "the sign of the four," and adding the name of "Dost Akhbar" (sic).

The Sign of Three on page 23 of the manuscript of The Sign of Four

After completing the story at the end of September, he sent the manuscript to Lippincott's agents in London. Conan Doyle then wrote to Stoddart on October 1. He asked the editor to pick the title:

"The Sign of the Four" strikes me as likely to be popular, but a trifle catchpenny. "The Problem of the Sholtos" is more choice, though less dramatic.

The story appeared with "The Sign of the Four" listed on the cover of the February 1890 issue of Lippincott's Monthly Magazine. Its title page also included "The Problem of the Sholtos" as an alternative title.

The Sign of the Four in Lippincott's for February 1890

When Conan Doyle serialized the story a few months later in British newspapers, he shortened the story's title by removing "the" and calling it just "The Sign of Four." He also used this shorter title for the book's first English edition published by Spencer Blackett in October 1890.

Some books in America called it "The Sign of the Four" while others used the shorter "The Sign of Four." Authorized editions generally carried the shorter title. Pirated versions often set type from the magazine's text, and thus tended to use "The Sign of the Four."

The story's manuscript carries revisions in pencil by an editor at Lippincott's. These revisions include minor punctuation changes, edits to "Americanize" the text for publication in the United States, and typesetting notes.

For example, notations on the last page of the manuscript instruct the compositor to set "The End" in all capital letters, and to exclude Conan Doyle's signature from the printed text. See the photo of the last page.

The first page of the bound manuscript does not include any pencil annotations because it is a fair copy provided by Conan Doyle after the story's publication. It uses his later, shorter title of "The Sign of Four," and has only a single trivial correction. However, it does contain one mistake. See a photo of the first page.

Conan Doyle's visitor card is pasted to the top of this page. If the author provided his card with the fair copy, his "Undershaw" address dates the fair copy after June 1897, and the "Dr." suggests a time before his knighthood in 1902. His handwritten "with kind remembrances" might be directed to Stoddart.

Anderson Galleries sold the bound manuscript, including its fair copy first page, the visiting card, and the letters, as part of its auction of the Louis I. Haber collection in 1909.

The manuscript's original first page went to auction in 1914. It includes several minor revisions in ink by Conan Doyle, as well as a number of pencil annotations by a Lippincott's editor.

Most notably, Conan Doyle did not write the story's title at the top of this page. He instead left that choice to Stoddart and someone at Lippincott's added "The Sign of the Four" in pencil at the top of the sheet. See a photo of the manuscript's original first page from a 2014 exhibition.

Provenance:

Louis I. Haber (bookplate; sold via Anderson Auction December 1, 1909, lot 552); David Gage Joyce (died 1937); Mrs. Beatrice Kean (daughter of Joyce, died 1972); Hamill & Barker (from Hanzel Galleries in Chicago, September 23, 1973, lot 98); Redmond A. Burke (from Hamill & Barker circa 1973; died 1996); Rodney P. Swantko (from Sotheby's NY, December 4, 1996, lot 71; died 2022).

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Notes on the Story & Manuscript

Chapter I, MS1 (fair copy): Manner vs. Air

The fair copy mistakenly includes the phrase "nonchalant manner," while the original first page of the manuscript, and the published text of the story, use "nonchalant air." See photos of fair copy (line 16) and original sheet (line 21)

Chapter I: Wigmore Street Post Office

In Lippincott's, the post office is first located on Wigmore Street, but a few sentences later it is placed on Seymour Street. The first English book edition by Spencer Blackett corrects this so that both sentences refer to "Wigmore Street."

Chapter II: July vs. September

Holmes says a letter that Mary Morstan received that morning is dated "July 7." Later that same day, in Chapter III, Watson calls it a "September evening." Both Lippincott's and the first English book edition by Spencer Blackett contain this discrepancy.

Chapter III (MS23): Dost Akbar

Conan Doyle changed the manuscript from "three" to "four" people and added the name "Dost Akhbar." See the photo above. The published text in both Lippincott's and the Spencer Blackett book change the spelling to Akbar without the "h."

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The Sign of Four Manuscript Photos

Manuscript of The Sign of Four - first page

First page of Conan Doyle manuscript for The Sign of Four

Page 23 of The Sign of Four

Manuscript of The Sign of Four - page 23

Page 23 of Conan Doyle manuscript for The Sign of Four

Conan Doyle initially used the phrase "the sign of three" on MS23 before changing it to "the sign of the four." For a larger photo and more details on this change and the story's title, see the history section above.

Page 160 of The Sign of Four

Manuscript of The Sign of Four - page 160

Page 160 of Conan Doyle manuscript for The Sign of Four

The manuscript description (above) has more information and a photo of the manuscript's cover. The history section includes a photo from MS23 showing some key changes affecting the story's title.

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Sotheby's Catalog & Sale Information

Sotheby's will have an online listing and bidding page for this lot, probably in early June. It currently has a general information page about the Library of Dr. Rodney P Swantko.