On the first leaf of the document is found "Begun Dec. 1/91" the manuscript was probably completed the following year. The novel first appeared in print in 1893. The document is unsigned but is believed to be in the author's hand. The manuscript is complete, except for page 118, one paragraph on page 135, and a part of the last paragraph of the "notes." Scarcely 400 words of about 150,000 have been lost. The second volume has been very carelessly bound and certain sections towards the end are not in proper numberical sequence. Some fifty pages were torn (with no loss of text) at one time and rather crudely mended with blue paper. It has been suggested that Doyle's daughter, Marie Louise, was known to have destructive instincts at an early age and tore some of the pages of her father's writing. At the end of the second volume are seven pages of the original manuscript of "Uncle Bernac" (the last of chapter 14 and the beginning of chapter 15).