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Sherlock Holmes and "The Creeping Man" Manuscript:
A Gift to Portsmouth

 

The original manuscript of "The Adventure of the Creeping Man," a Sherlock Holmes story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, went to Portsmouth, England in April 2009 as a bequest from his daughter Dame Jean.  It is now part of that city's Arthur Conan Doyle Collection, which includes many other Conan Doyle rarities.

 

 

The Creeping Man Manuscript Description

 

The 44-page autograph manuscript is written in black ink on lined exercise book paper.  It's signed at the end of the story as "Arthur Conan Doyle | Crowborough" and is not dated.  There is no separate title page, but the first page of text is headed "'The Adventure of the Creeping Man."  It's bound in white leather and titled in gilt as shown here.  After the story text ends, there are several additional blank pages from the exercise book, and on the last page appears some scribbling done in pencil.

 

From the Estate of Dame Jean Conan Doyle.

Arthur Conan Doyle Collection website

 

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History of the Manuscript

 

Dame Jean Conan Doyle, the last surviving child of Sir Arthur, died in 1997 and bequeathed her three Sherlock Holmes manuscripts to museums or libraries in different cities.  The British Library received "The Retired Colurman" from her estate in 2004, and the National Library of Scotland got "The Illustrious Client" manuscript in 2006.  Her final gift, designated to a museum or library in Portsmouth, brought "The Creeping Man" to this city in April 2009, just in time for the 150th anniversary of Sir Arthur's birth.

 

The Strand Magazine first published this story in March 1923, and it appeared that same month in the United States in Hearst's International Magazine.  It was included in the final collection of Holmes short stories, The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes, in 1927.

 

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Online News Articles About the Manuscript

 

The following reports were available online.

 

Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press, May 2009, page #2

[The manuscript of "The Creeping Man"...] by Peter E. Blau

http://redcircledc.org/index.php?id=39

 

The News (Portsmouth), 30 April 2009

Conan Doyle's handwriting now safely in Portsmouth's hands by Alex Forsyth

Announces receipt of the manuscript

Originally at: http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/newshome/Conan-Doyle39s-handwriting-now-safely.5220720.jp

http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/local/conan-doyle-s-handwriting-now-safely-in-portsmouth-s-hands-1-1231014

 

Portsmouth 30 April 2009 press release (originally at: http://www.portsmouth.gov.uk/yourcouncil/15321_15565.html)

 

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Other Portsmouth Conan Doyle Material

 

Portsmouth is home to the Arthur Conan Doyle Collection, Richard Lancelyn Green Bequest.  This collection includes 2,000 Conan Doyle or Sherlock Holmes related objects, 16,000 books and more than 1,000 boxes of archive material.  Green was one of the world's leading experts on Sherlock Holmes and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  He died in 2004 and gave his collection to Portsmouth.

 

Some important material in the collection includes:

 

A fine copy of Beeton's Christmas Annual for 1887 with the first appearance of Sherlock Holmes, which is more fully described as copy R23 in my Beeton's Christmas Annual 1887 Checklist and Census.

 

An original Sherlock Holmes portrait by Sidney Paget, the most famous illustrator of the Holmes stories in The Strand Magazine.

 

An original Sidney Paget drawing for Conan Doyle's Brigadier Gerard story "The Crime of the Brigadier."

 

A Sidney Paget drawing for a Martin Hewitt detective story by Arthur Morrison.

 

More details for the Paget material are listed in my Census of Sidney Paget Original Drawings and Artwork.

 

 

Arthur Conan Doyle Collection

http://www.conandoylecollection.co.uk/

 

BBC News, 6 August 2004

Holmes collection left to library

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/england/hampshire/3537546.stm

 

Culture 24,  6 August 2004

Conan Doyle Collection Comes Home to Portsmouth by David Prudames

http://www.culture24.org.uk/places+to+go/london/art23399

 

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My thanks to Claire Looney and Michael Gunton from the city of Portsmouth for their assistance with my research on "The Creeping Man" manuscript.

 

 

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