The Narrative of John Smith would not have considered publishing this work, he continued to use quotes, character frames, and themes of "The Narrative of John Smith" in many of his other works, such as "The Stark Munro Letters", "Through the Magic Door", "A Study in Scarlet", and "The Hound of the Baskervilles". In 2004, the then untitled manuscript of Arthur Conan Doyle's rewritten unpublished first novel was purchased at auction by The British Library. It was first published in 2011 by The British Library, edited by Jon Lellenberg, Daniel Stashower, and Rachel Foss. At the age of twenty-three when Conan Doyle wrote "The Narrative
The Hound of the Baskervilles up into individual leaves as part of a promotional campaign by Doyle's American publisher - they were used as part of window displays by individual booksellers. Out of an estimated 185-190 leaves, only 36 are known to still exist, including all the leaves from Chapter 11, held by the New York Public Library. Other leaves are owned by university libraries and private collectors. A newly rediscovered example was sold at auction in 2012 for US$158,500. The novel uses many traditional novelistic techniques which had been largely abandoned by the time of writing, such as letters, diary extracts, interpolated manuscripts, and