Estimate: $1,000 - $1,500
The Collection of Victor Niederhoffer part II
Auction: September 19, 2019 11:00:00 AM EDT
Windleshaw, Crowborough, Sussex, (England): June 16 (ca 1920s). 8vo. Autograph letter to both sides of one leaf, signed in ink "A Conan Doyle" to "My dear Seymour" on Doyle's Sussex stationary. Manuscript strong and clear; creasing from old, presumably original, folds.
6 3/4 x 5 7/8 in. (17 x 15cm) (sight).
Unexamined out of double-paned glass frame. Framed with an accompanying engraved portrait of Doyle.
A fascinating summation of Conan Doyle's Spiritualist worldview in the 1920s. Doyle defends his ideas as rooted in proofs and empirical evidence built "from below, brick by brick," as opposed to other spiritually oriented systems, like Theosophy, that "build down from the apex." He encourages his interlocutor known as Seymour to do the same, and to "insist upon proofs all the time." He goes on to defend Oscar Wilde from an accusation of demon worship, "Sexuality and green chartreuse was more his line," and continues to insist on his belief in fairies, "the fairies hold the field. They are an unimportant side show in this past subject, but they seem real enough."