History of a Lost Manuscript: "The Narrative of John Smith" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Conan Doyle began his literary career by writing short stories for magazines. At that time, magazines typically did not identify the author of a story. This limited an author's financial opportunities, so Conan Doyle decided to write a novel. He started writing it in 1883.

The future author of the Sherlock Holmes series wrote his first novel at the age of 23, but this manuscript was lost in the mail and the story was never published. In 2004 the British Library acquired a large collection of papers from the Conan Doyle family archives, including an untitled manuscript with much of his first novel.

The publisher describes the book as "more a series of ruminations than a traditional novel" and a "window into the mind" of the author. It's not an adventure or mystery story. As the manuscript is incomplete, the published story is unfinished.