Hound of the Baskervilles, The

A Fine First Edition "Hound" in the Original Cloth

DOYLE, A[rthur] Conan. The Hound of the Baskervilles. Another Adventure of Sherlock Holmes. London: George Newnes, 1902.

First edition in book form (first serialized in the Strand Magazine between August 1901 and April 1902). Small octavo (7 1/4 x 4 3/4 inches; 184 x 122 mm.). [8], 358, [1], [1, blank] pp. With sixteen plates (including frontispiece) by Sidney Paget.

Original scarlet cloth pictorially stamped in gilt and black (in a design by Alfred Garth Jones) and lettered in gilt on front cover and pictorially stamped and lettered in gilt on spine. Spine slightly faded, minor blistering to cloth on covers near joints. Minimal foxing to edges, free endpapers slightly browned from pastedown glue. Otherwise an excellent copy, with the gilt bright and fresh.

The Hound of the Baskervilles "was based on an idea given to [Doyle] by Bertram Fletcher Robinson, who was a nephew of Sir John Robinson and a correspondent for the Daily Express during the Boer War. The two men struck up a friendship when travelling back on the same ship from Cape Town. They spent four days together on a golfing holiday at Cromer in March 1901, and it was then that Robinson mentioned the legend (possibly of the Black Hound of Hergest associated with the Vaughan family of Hergest Court in Herefordshire). Doyle told his mother: �Fletcher Robinson came here with me and we are going to do a small book together "The Hound of the Baskervilles"�a real creeper'�The serial publication was an unprecedented success. It was the only occasion in the magazine's history that a seventh printing was needed to meet the demand, and the queues at the publisher's offices and throughout the country were extraordinary" (Green and Gibson, p. 130).

Green and Gibson A26a.

Price: $5,500

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