London - Arabstoday
Poem was Doyle’s contribution to the Queen’s Gift Book published in 1915 London - Arabstoday A signed manuscript of a poem by the Sherlock Holmes author, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is to go on sale. Written in 1915, the poem titled Ypres is estimated to fetch between £5,000 and £8,000 when it is auctioned on April 10 at the Poetry: Political Manuscripts and Portraits of Poets event at Bonhams, London. The poem was Conan Doyle’s contribution to the Queen’s Gift Book, published in 1915 in aid of soldiers who’d lost limbs in the war. It was also included in Doyle’s The Guards Came Through and Other Poems. The work begins… “Push on, my Lord of Wurtenburg, push on, across the fen! See where the Town of Ypres calls you! There\'s just one ragged British line of Plumer\'s weary men, It\'s time they held you off before, but venture it again! Come, try your luck, whatever fate befalls you!... “ The Lord of Wurtenberg was in fact William II King of Württemberg, a German Field Marshal at the Second Battle of Ypres in Spring 1915 where he faced the British troops of V Corps commanded by Field Marshall, Sir Herbert Plumer. Conan Doyle’s son Kingsley was badly wounded on the first day of the Battle of the Somme in July 1916 and though he survived was subsequently struck down by the Spanish influenza epidemic in 1918. Poetry: Poetical Manuscripts and Portraits of Poets is the fruit of 40 years of collecting by the poet and scholar Roy Davids and is the finest collection of poetry ever to come to auction. In Mr David’s own words, “It would now be impossible for the present collection to be even approximately replicated.”