With his razor-sharp intelligence and finely honed analytical skills, there was no fooling the creator of Sherlock Holmes: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle knew a hit when he saw one.
A collection of Conan Doyle manuscripts, which have remained in his family for the past century, is to be auctioned at Christie's in London in aid of a number of charities.
It includes the original manuscript of the book he insisted should have a print run of 15,000 copies, against the judgment of his publishers. A Duet with an Occasional Chorus, which appeared in 1889, was not what fans of A Study in Scarlet or The Sign of the Four expected.
Instead of opium dens and cloaked figures in the fog they got a gripping yarn of a young couple going on a honeymoon in Brighton, setting up home together and arguing about the pattern of the wallpaper and becoming parents.
Many of Conan Doyle's public declined to buy the book, even when one critic denounced it as immoral - because the hero meets his former mistress in public and has a cup of coffee with her. Conan Doyle refused to give up on it. He wrote to his mother: "My inmost soul tells me it is not a failure."
The plot and the character of the saintly Maude were based on his own first marriage, which ended when his wife died of tuberculosis. The manuscript, which will be auctioned next week, is said to have been a spectacularly tactless gift to his second wife.
His faith may ultimately be justified, since the manuscript is estimated at up to £40,000. The bound manuscript, together with those of a first world war poem, a report from the Boer war, several of his Brigadier Gerard stories and one of hislast works, The Maracot Deep, were all owned by his daughter, Dame Jean Conan Doyle, his last surviving child who died six years ago.
The executors of her estate have decided to sell the works to raise money for six charities she nominated before her death.
Tom Lamb, head of Christie's book department, said: "Although manuscripts do come on the market fairly regularly... there is never likely to be a group like this again."
