Between 1921 and 1924, many of Britain and Ireland's most significant writers contributed handwritten books to the miniature library of Queen Mary's Dolls' House. The collection of tiny manuscripts was organised by Princess Marie Louise, a granddaughter of Queen Victoria, and the writer E.V. Lucas.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle played cricket with E.V. Lucas, and cricket forms part of the ‘unpublished novelette’, in his words, that he wrote specially for his friend’s project. His miniature book, How Watson Learned the Trick, is a new Sherlock Holmes story that Doyle hand-wrote for the Dolls’ House. In the short tale, Watson attempts to make deductions about Holmes, but the famous detective proves him wrong on every point.

There was some fun speculation amongst contributors to Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House that fairies might live in it. For Doyle, this would have been a little more serious. He believed he had seen evidence that fairies really exist in the infamous Cottingley Fairies photographs, and published articles on this subject in the same year as he was writing his short story for the Dolls’ House.


Description

Miniature manuscript on paper, 34 leaves, in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's autograph. Bound in red goatskin with simple gold-tooled decoration.