Title
Holograph letter to A. P. Watt
Date
July 18, 1910
Subject
On Crowborough stationery
Description
In 1890, Conan Doyle signed on with agent A. P. (Alexander Pollock) Watt, founder, in 1875, of the first literary agency. Watt secured Conan Doyle his initial placement in the Strand (for “The Voice of Science”) in its inaugural issue of January 1891, placing his first Sherlock Holmes short stories with the new magazine later that year, and acting as Conan Doyle’s agent until his own death in 1914.
Conan Doyle’s side of their voluminous correspondence was often telegraphically concise, as seen here. The tiny glyph beneath Conan Doyle’s last name indicates that this piece of correspondence was written by his private secretary, Alfred H. Wood, whose handwriting was remarkably, sometimes nearly undetectably, akin to Conan Doyle’s.