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"The Three Students" Manuscript Facsimile:
Details About So Painful a Scandal
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The Houghton Library at Harvard holds the original manuscript for the Sherlock Holmes story "The Adventure of the Three Students." Harvard conducted a Conan Doyle symposium and exhibition in 2009 as part of the 150th anniversary of the birth of Sir Arthur, and this made for an opportune moment to issue a facsimile.
So Painful a Scandal is edited, with an introduction, by John Bergquist. It includes a facsimile of "The Three Students" manuscript, a transcription with extensive annotation, and related essays. The facsimile images are reduced to 7.5 x 4.5 inches and show the rectos of the manuscript's 21 text pages, its autograph title page, the front and rear paste-downs, and the front and rear covers of the bound manuscript.
The striking color illustration for the dust jacket is by Frederic Dorr Steele and is an unused cover design for the first appearance of "The Three Students" in Collier's Weekly in 1904. This previously unpublished drawing is part of The Arthur Conan Doyle Collection, Lancelyn Green Bequest in Portsmouth, England.
The title of this volume comes from the opening paragraph of the tale, in which Dr. Watson notes the sensitivity of a case of cheating at a famous university and suggests "so painful a scandal may well be allowed to die out."
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About the Facsimile of "The Three Students" Manuscript
Contents of So Painful a Scandal
About the Facsimile of "The Three Students" Manuscript
So Painful a Scandal is the sixth volume in The Baker Street Irregulars Manuscript Series. [Full disclosure: I was a contributor to this volume, and thus I'll focus on describing the "facsimile" portion rather than providing a critical review or discussing the essays.]
Like the other books in this series, it includes a manuscript reproduction, a transcription, and essays on various aspects of the story. Unlike many other facsimiles, this volume also reproduces the paste-downs and the bound covers of the manuscript. More importantly, the line-for-line transcription faces the image of each handwritten page. This allows you to read the text and immediately refer to the original writing. Although the images are smaller than the original, the reproduction quality is good and the facing transcription makes the material quite accessible.
Phillip Bergem produced the notes for the manuscript. These primarily consist of an examination of Conan Doyle's mode of composition, bibliographical background, and textual analysis. He compared the manuscript text to the versions published in The Strand Magazine and in Collier's Weekly. Annotations for these variations are numbered in the margins of the transcription and appear after the last page image. The notes also include a few points about the narrative, but for complete story annotations you will need to refer to one of Klinger's Annotated volumes or the Oxford Sherlock Holmes.
Some aspects of a manuscript are not apparent from facsimile images. I included a description of the manuscript's physical attributes in my essay on the history of its composition and its owners. Enlarged portions of a few pages accompany my description.
Contents of So Painful a Scandal
- General Editor's Preface to the Series by Andrew G. Fusco
- Introduction by John Bergquist
- Notes on the Manuscript by Phillip Bergem
- Manuscript Facsimile of "The Adventure of the Three Students" with Annotated Transcription
- Following "The Three Students": A Manuscript History by Randall Stock
- Touring with "The Three Students" by Michael Eckman
- Three Students, Seventeen Problems by Nicholas Utechin
- "The Three Students" at Cambridge by Guy Marriott
- Oxbridge Camouflaged or Camford Obscured: Some Subfuscations of the Doylean Redactor by Oliver Nicholson
- Frederic Dorr Steele, Sherlock Holmes and "The Three Students" by Andrew Malec
Publication Details
Standard Edition
Type of material: Hardcover book
Title: So Painful a Scandal (manuscript facsimile)
Author (story): Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Author (volume): Edited, with an introduction by John Bergquist
Author (series): Andrew G. Fusco
Publisher: The Baker Street Irregulars in association with Houghton Library of the Harvard College Library
Year: 2009
ISBN: 978-0-9795550-4-6
Pages: 132
Price: US$35.00
Limited Edition (part of a 3-volume boxed set)
Includes all the same content as the standard edition, but has:
- Hand-numbered limitation page signed by the editors and all contributors
- A special Harvard crimson binding with gold-stamped outline of the Frederic Dorr Steele drawing mentioned above*
- Comes in a gold-stamped slipcase with two other volumes from the Harvard symposium
Price: US$195.00 (for the complete boxed set)
* The limited edition set does not include the pictorial dust jacket of the standard edition.
You can purchase the So Painful a Scandal standard edition on the Baker Street Journal website, and learn about ordering the limited edition boxed set.
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1.65x Original work
Copyright © 2009 Randall
Stock. All Rights Reserved.