LITERATURE 16 “Not Such A Hound As Mortal Eyes Have Ever Seen” 15CONAN DOYLE, Arthur. The Hound of the Baskervilles. London, 1902. Octavo, original pictorial red cloth, custom chemise and slipcase. $11,000 First edition, first issue, of the third Sherlock Holmes novel, widely regarded as the best of the series, with 16 illustrations by Sidney Paget. Although Conan Doyle had killed off his most famous character by sending him over the Reichenbach Falls while grappling with Professor Moriarty in “The Final Problem” (December 1893), his readership demanded the sleuth’s return. The author obliged with this, the third—and still considered by many the best— Sherlock Holmes novel, carefully positioned on the title page as “another adventure” of Holmes. “But,” as Howard Haycraft notes, “the seed of doubt was planted”; and while the novel proved an immediate success, readers continued to press for more. Conan Doyle finally relented and engineered Holmes’ “resurrection” in 1903. The Hound of the Baskervilles remains “one of the most gripping books in the language” (Crime & Mystery 100 Best 6). Without extremely scarce dust jacket. Green & Gibson A26. Text exceptionally clean, with none of the usual foxing. Just a bit of foxing to endpapers, front inner hinge expertly reinforced, cloth fresh and gilt bright. A near-fine copy. “Among The Very Great Novelists In The Language”: Conrad’s Works, Handsomely Bound 16CONRAD, Joseph. The Works. London, 1925-28. Twenty-three volumes. Octavo, contemporary three-quarter navy morocco gilt. $8200 “Medallion” edition,” with frontispiece plate in each volume, handsomely bound. Conrad did not publish his first novel until the age of 38, but his work earned him a place with the great modernists of the 20th-century, “among the very great novelists in the language” (Drabble, 225). “Conrad’s work at its best achieved a synthesis of theme, treatment, and language of a kind without precedent in English literature… Novelty of theme and the piquancy of a non-English origin established him as a romantic, almost as a legendary figure. His stories had excitement of a new kind, and his style, by its very queerness, could allure… powerfully… achieving a perfect equilibrium of pictorial and narrative style” (DNB). Fine condition.
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