Tales of the High Seas, complete autograph manuscript - photo 1
Tales of the High Seas, complete autograph manuscript - photo 2
Tales of the High Seas, complete autograph manuscript - photo 3
Tales of the High Seas, complete autograph manuscript - photo 4

Tales of the High Seas, complete autograph manuscript

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$ 25 200
Auction dateClassic
06.10.2022 12:00UTC -04:00
Auctioneer
CHRISTIE'S
Event location
USA, New York
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Archive
ID 813706
Lot 126 | Tales of the High Seas, complete autograph manuscript
Tales of the High Seas, complete autograph manuscript

Arthur Conan Doyle, c.1896

DOYLE, Arthur Conan (1859-1930). Autograph manuscript signed (“A. Conan Doyle”), “Tales of the High Seas: The Governor of St Kitts,” Greyswood, Haslemere, no date [c.1896].



23 pp., mostly about 167 x 204mm, essentially quarto sheets separated in half with slight variations in height and width (some letters just grazed, some margins irregular, old holes and faint creasing at upper left corners from a brass tack, ink a little faded or blotted in a handful of places, very minor finger soiling); black ink on lined paper; each leaf tipped at left margin to larger sheet measuring 230 x 220mm, bound in full black morocco gilt by Stikeman. Provenance: David G. Joyce (his sale, Anderson Galleries, 13 & 14 February 1923, lot 260) – Christie’s New York, 17 May 1996, lot 74.



Complete autograph manuscript signed of the first short story in Doyle's series about the sinister pirate, Captain Sharkey. Pirate Sharkey would appear in four other stories, three in the "Tale of the High Seas" series, published in 1897, and a fourth in "The Blighting of Sharkey," in April 1911. He is first introduced to readers as "Captain Sharkey, of the twenty-gun pirate barque, Happy Delivery," who had littered the coast "with gutted vessels and with murdered men. Dreadful anecdotes were current of his grim pleasantries and of his inflexible ferocity. From the Bahamas to the Main his coal-black barque, with the ambiguous name, had been freighted with death and many things which are worse than death..." The present manuscript comprises the complete and nearly final text with a few sparse revisions (e.g. “luggage” becomes “baggage”, “murder” becomes “villainy”). The story was first published under the title "How the Governor of St. Kitt's Came Home" in Pearson's Magazine for January 1897 and in McClure's Magazine for May 1897, it was later collected in Doyle's book The Green Flag and Other Stories of War and Sport in 1900.

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