First American Editions in Original Cloth

DOYLE, Arthur Conan.

Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. [And:] The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.

New York: Harper & Brothers, 1892.

Full Description:

DOYLE, Arthur Conan. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. [And:] The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. New York: Harper & Brothers, [1892] and 1894.

First American editions, later issue of Adventures (with no date on title-page, one one of two errors on page 65: "if he had" on line 4 but with "to think of ! and I" on line 10. First issue of Memoirs with the later removed "Card-Board Box" story. Two crown octavo volumes.

(7 1/4 x 4 7/8 inches; 182 x 125 mm). [viii], 307, [1, blank], [4, ads]; [i-vi], 281, [1, blank], [6, ads] pp. Adventures with sixteen inserted illustrations after Sidney Paget, Memoirs with twenty-seven inserted illustrations after Paget and W.H. Hyde, including frontispieces for each volume.

Uniformly bound in original light blue cloth. Front boards attractively blocked in dark blue with the "Gordius Nodus" (Gordian Knot) and lettered in gilt. Spines lettered in gilt and stamped with devices in blue, a lantern for Adventures and handcuffs for Memoirs. Top edges dyed brown. Some minimal browning to spines and board edges. Some pencil notations to endpapers of Adventures. Previous owner's bookplate to front pastedown and book seller sticker to rear pastedown in Memoirs. Overall a near fine set.

The American edition of The Adventures was published just one day after the British (15 October 1892 as opposed to 14 October 1892) and in an edition of only 4,500 copies (the British edition was 10,000). The American edition had sold 4,197 copies by July 1893. There were two further impressions of 5,000 copies with undated title-pages, followed by a further 2,000. The American edition of The Memoirs was published about six weeks after the British (February 1894 as opposed to December 1893 and, again, in a smaller edition); it contains a new story, "The Adventure of the Card-Board Box," which was not in the British and was deleted from American reprints, along with the three illustrations to the story.

Green and Gibson A10b & 14b.

HBS 69687.

$1,250.

Price: $1,250.00

Item #69687