EXTRAORDINARILY RARE FIRST AMERICAN EDITION OF THE FIRST SHERLOCK HOLMES NOVEL, A STUDY IN SCARLET, 1890, IN SCARCE ORIGINAL PAPER WRAPPERS

CONAN DOYLE, Sir Arthur. A Study in Scarlet. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincot, 1890.

First American edition of the first Sherlock Holmes story, in exceptionally scarce original paper wrappers.

In 1882, the young Conan Doyle set up his medical practice in Southsea, a suburb near the southern seacoast city of Portsmouth. For four years, the practice languished: “With virtually unlimited time to sit, puff his cheap shag and ponder in his waiting-room, barren of furnishings and patients alike, he had begun to send out short stories to the cheaper magazines. A modest success in this direction only served to show that his time was wasted—that if any really substantial return were to be expected from his pen, only a full-length book could be the answer… Doyle was on the verge of despair and surrender when, by some providential trick of the brain… the Great Idea took glimmering shape. Feverishly he began to write, and a few weeks later A Study in Scarlet, with a hero surnamed for an admired American poet [Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.], and a foil and narrator to be immortally known as Watson, took its turn in the mails” (Haycraft, 48-9). The manuscript was rejected by publishers several times over before London publisher Ward, Lock and Company offered £25 and a contract stipulating certain conditions: that publication would be delayed a year, that they would retain full ownership of the copyright, and that the author would receive no royalties. “For their small outlay the publishers acquired a valuable copyright” (Green & Gibson A1). Its publication in November, 1887 in Beeton’s Christmas Annual sold out before Christmas. A new edition was planned with new type and illustrations by Charles Doyle, who was by then confined to an asylum on account of his epilepsy and alcoholism. Although the size of the first edition is unknown, its success is undoubted. Sherlock Holmes had entered the world and was to change the course of detective fiction definitively. “Rightly elected to the number one slot as the most distinguished mystery fiction ever written, the Sherlock Holmes canon stands as the most consistently brilliant, original, important, and entertaining works of fiction ever produced” (The Crown Crime Companion’s Top 100 Mystery Novels, 21). First American edition; this wrappered issue was published in March 1890, with the American cloth issue appearing seven months later. Original English edition published in 1888; the American edition does not include the six line drawings by the author?s father found in the English edition. Green & Gibson A1b. De Waal 419.

Interior fine; expert repair to inner hinge. Expected wear to extremities of original wrappers, one-inch loss to spine foot, affecting publisher?s imprint. An extremely scarce first edition, rare in wrappers.