AUTHOR'S EDITION, FIRST AMERICAN ISSUE: HANDSOME SET OF THE WORKS OF ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE

CONAN DOYLE, Sir Arthur. Works. New York: D. Appleton, (1902). Thirteen volumes. Octavo, original three-quarter burgundy morocco, elaborately gilt-decorated spines, marbled boards and endpapers, top edges gilt, uncut. $6200.

First American issue of the "Author's Edition" of Doyle's works, number 124 of 1000 sets, with two photogravure illustrations in each volume and a photogravure portrait of Conan Doyle in The White Company.

"The author considered this edition of his works to be of great importance: he revised parts, and added notes and a number of special introductions" (Green & Gibson, A60). In the Preface, Conan Doyle remarks, "It has always been my ambition—the dearer because it appeared to be unattainable—to have a collected edition of my own works… For better, for worse, I have expended all pains in putting these books into their final form, and so I leave them. Outside this edition there is no work of mine up to this date which I do not willingly suppress." Includes Doyle's classic Sherlock Holmes novels and stories (A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of Four, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes and The Hound of the Baskervilles), as well as his stories and historical romances. The American issue of the "Author's Edition" was not signed by Conan Doyle, while the English issue was signed; the American issue does, however, include The Hound of the Baskervilles (first published in 1902, the same year this set was issued), while the English issue does not.

Interiors fine. Handsome contemporary bindings with minor toning to spines and slight rubbing to some extremities.