DOYLE, Arthur Conan.

£12,500 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

The Sign of Four. First edition in book form, in the first issue binding. The second Sherlock Holmes novel came to fruition after the American editor of Lippincott's Monthly Magazine's sought to commission a story from Doyle and Wilde to expand his paper's reach internationally. Doyle contributed The Sign of Four, and Wilde The Picture of Dorian Gray.The front free endpaper has a lively pencilled review by T. Walter Hall, dated December 1890: "This book was very well received in the London Papers but though well written it is not a first-rate detective story; the whole thing is most improbable & imaginative & leaves the reader no chance of looking ahead & solving the problem for himself". Hall (1862-1953) was a Sheffield local historian and the first chairman of the Hunter Archaeological Society. His book label is on the front pastedown.The first issue binding has the spine imprint "Spencer Blackett's Standard Library". The year after publication, Griffith Farran & Co. purchased the sheets and bound them with their own imprint. This copy has the textual points called for by Green and Gibson: "w shed" for "wished" (p. 56) and "13" for "138" (contents page). The story first appeared in Lippincott's in February 1890, being published in book form later that year.

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