?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200
INSCRIBED COPY WITH AUTOGRAPH NOTES SIGNED DOYLE, ARTHUR CONAN. The Wanderings of A Spiritualist. Frontispiece portrait and 12 photographic plates. 8vo, publisher's green cloth, occasional mottling, joints rubbed with fray near head; rear hinge tender, endpapers toned, ANS laid down to front flyleaf. New York: George H. Doran, (1921)
inscribed copy of the first american edition signed by the author on the title: "Yours in the great cause of Spirit. Arthur Conan Doyle. May 31 / 22" presumably to Arthur Edward Stilwell to whom the Autograph Note Signed is addressed arranging a meeting between the two predating the inscription by one day. Also included are two Autograph Notes Signed, laid in, from Doyle to Stilwell, each signed "A Conan Doyle." The first is on note card (recto and verso, creased) of the White Star Line dated 29 June. Doyle writes: "I have read your book 'THE LIGHT.' It is a very level & workmanlike production, with no high lights, but never sinking below a good quality. I agree with your publishers that it would be better not to allude to the Brownies.... I hope some path may open up for your Spiritual labours. I have written about you in my little book ..." The second note is on telegraph stationary (recto only, vertical crease) which begins with Doyle stating that "I am full of sympathy but it is simply impossible for me to fall into your Brownie scheme" and in the course of the letter mentions fellow spiritualist Rev. Vale Owen, as well as his itinerary for a tour of America. Stilwell founded the Kansas City Southern Railway, and claimed to be guided by spirits, which he called "Brownies," in many of his personal and professional decisions -- perhaps unwisely, as he died virtually penniless. Green & Gibson B28.b.
