The Vital Message, complete autograph manuscript

Lot 127
06.10.2022 12:00UTC -05:00
Classic
Vendu
$ 27 720
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Lieu de l'événementEtats-Unis, New York
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ID 813800
Lot 127 | The Vital Message, complete autograph manuscript
Valeur estimée
$ 15 000 – 25 000
The Vital Message, complete autograph manuscript

Arthur Conan Doyle, c.1918-19

DOYLE, Arthur Conan (1859-1930). Autograph manuscript signed (“Arthur Conan Doyle”), “The Vital Message,” Crowborough, 16 November [c.1918-19].



67 pp., most 322 x 202mm but many cut in half or shorter; pencil, black, and violet ink on mostly lined paper; organized in five sections, each fastened with a brass tack at top left corner (some foxing and minor soiling, light edgewear in some places). Full morocco clamshell box. Provenance: Sotheby's New York, 10 December 1993, lot 319.



An uncommon working draft by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The Vital Message, first published in Hearst's International in March-November 1919, recounts Doyle’s conversion to Spiritualism, which he had announced in 1916. He gave his first public lecture on the topic in 1917 and published The New Revelation, or What is Spiritualism and Life After Death in 1918. Spiritualism, which emerged as a counterculture movement within Victorian and Edwardian society, embraced the idea that the human personality survives death and can communicate with the living through mediums, and Doyle’s longtime fascination (beginning in the 1880s) turned more serious during World War I and following the deaths of his son and brother in 1918 and 1919 respectively. During the final twelve years of his life, he would publish twenty books on the topic (a third of his total output as a writer), the most notable being his two-volume History of Spiritualism, which made him a leader in the movement.



Working drafts of Doyle's work are uncommon; typically manuscripts are quite clean, with only a handful of minor edits throughout. The present manuscript is full of emendations, most evident from leaves that have been torn, or from smaller slips of paper that have been inserted throughout, indicating text that has been abandoned or refined. Despite the revisions, the manuscript is complete and very close to the version of the text as published.

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