13 “The Greatest Of All English Stories For Children” 13CARROLL, Lewis. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. London, 1866. Octavo, late 19th- or early 20th-century full red morocco gilt. $14,500 First authorized English edition of Carroll’s cherished romp through the realm of nonsense, “the greatest of all English stories for children” (Muir, 139), illustrated with 42 engravings by John Tenniel, handsomely bound by Morrell. A mesmerizing masterpiece of comic nonsense, Alice also demonstrates Carroll’s gift for recognizing “the child’s inner fears, wishes, intelligence and imagination. He unleashed thousands of children’s minds… and invited them to laugh” (Silvey, 124). “It is, in a word, a book of that extremely rare kind which will belong to all the generations to come until the language becomes obsolete” (Sir Walter Besant). First published and authorized English edition, preceded only by the extraordinarily rare suppressed 1865 London edition, of which only about 20 copies are known to exist, and the scarce New York edition of 1866. See PMM 354. Unobtrusively repaired tear to frontispiece, with small paper repairs to several other leaves including replacement of one lower outer corner. Beautifully bound. “Not Such A Hound As Mortal Eyes Have Ever Seen” 14CONAN DOYLE, Arthur. The Hound of the Baskervilles. London, 1902. Octavo, original pictorial black- and gilt-stamped 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 and “one of the most gripping stories in the English language.” 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.
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