Unlike many famous authors, very few of the original Arthur Conan Doyle manuscripts (ie. the original drafts handwritten by ACD himself before being sent to the publisher) still exist. Those that do exist are housed mostly in the special collection archives of libraries in NYC, Minnesota, Texas and Harvard. A few of these manuscripts have been commercially published - for example the publishing arm of the BSI has a series called the BSI Manuscript Series which has put out "A Scandal in Bohemia", "The Three Students", "The Six Napoleons" and Chapter XI of The Hound of the Baskervilles. Also, some libraries will occasionally post a page or two of an ACD MS online.

"This is the meticulous manuscript for one of Conan Doyle's 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories, "The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter", first published in 1904" in all it's original glory (corrections and all):  Page 1 of the manuscript for "The Missing Three Quarter".

Original Text:

The Adventure of the Missing Three Quarter.

We were fairly accustomed to receive weird telegrams at Baker Street but I have a particular recollection of one which reached us on a gloomy February morning some seven or eight years ago and gave Mr. Sherlock Holmes a puzzled quarter of an hour. It was addressed to him, and ran thus   

"Please await me/ Terrible misfortune/ Right wing three quarter missing, indispensable tomorrow. Overton."

"Strand post mark and dispatched 10.36" said Holmes, reading it over and over. "Mr. Overton was evidently considerably excited when he sent it, and somewhat incoherent in consequence. Well, well, he will be here I dare say by the time I have looked through the Times and then we shall know all about it. Even the most insignificant problem would be welcome in these stagnant times."

Things had indeed been very slow with us, and I had learned to dread such periods of inaction for I knew by experience that my companion's brain was so abnormally active that it was dangerous to leave it without material upon which to work. For years I had gradually weaned him from that drug mania which had threatened once to check his remarkable nature. Now I knew that under ordinary conditions he no longer craved for this artificial stimulus but I was well aware that the fiend was not dead but sleeping, and I have known that the sleep was a light one and the waking near when in periods of idleness I have seen the drawn look upon Holmes's ascetic face, and the brooding of his deep set and inscrutable eyes. Therefore I blessed this Mr. Overton, whoever he might be, since he had come with his enigmatic message to break that dangerous calm which brought more peril to my friend than all the storms of his tempestuous life.

Last edited by always1895 (October 11, 2012 8:40 am)