DOYLE ARTHUR CONAN Autograph Letter Signed A Conan Doyle to

Sale 2376 - Lot 188

Price Realized: $ 1,430

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Estimate: $ 500 - $ 750

"I CAN ONLY ANSWER OBJECTIONS BY SAYING 'I SAW IT'" DOYLE, ARTHUR CONAN. Autograph Letter Signed, "A Conan Doyle," to "My dear Woodward" [Arthur Smith Woodward?], declining to agree that what both saw [at a séance?] was a turtle, thanking for a book, and relating that he found no fossils at Bracklesham. 1 page, 8vo, "Windlesham" stationery; folds, faint toning along lower edge. Crowborough, 5 October no year

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"I don't know about the Admiral, but I can assure you that what we saw was not a turtle--tho' the idea of a turtle without his shell did occur to me. I'm afraid that in zoology as in psychic matters I am drifting with the position where I can only answer objections by saying 'I saw it.'
". . . I went to Bracklesham for fossils but find that the famous beds are submarine!"
Arthur Smith Woodward (1864–1944) was a distinguished paleontologist who served over 40 years at the British Museum, and who, with Charles Dawson, claimed to have discovered fossilized remains of a previously unknown early human: "Piltdown Man." In the 1950s, the fossils were found to have been forged. Some have suspected Doyle of having orchestrated the hoax.