The Hound of the Baskervilles.

First edition of Conan Doyle’s famous novel.

First edition, (with both errors called for by Green and Gibson). Cover design by A.G.J. Frontispiece and fifteen plates by Sidney Paget. 8vo. Original scarlet pictorial cloth, gilt and black. London, George Newnes, Limited.

First edition of Conan Doyle’s famous novel The Hound of the Baskervilles, and his first Sherlock Holmes story after he killed the detective off in “The Final Problem”. Presented as a previously overlooked tale set two years before Holmes’s death. He would bring the detective back to life in 1903 due to popular demand, explaining in “The Empty House”, how Holmes had faked his death. 

Conan Doyle’s first and only foray into the literary tradition of the ‘explained supernatural’ popularised by Ann Radcliffe. If the Gothic novel can be seen as a representation of the struggle between the enlightenment and the unexplained, The Hound of the Baskervilles might be viewed as the triumph of reason over the supernatural.  

The novel “almost uniquely presents […] the hero-detective acting specifically as the champion of empirical science, facing its crucial challenge, the challenge of the seemingly supernatural. Hence, in solving this case Holmes does more than expose crime and defeat a criminal, he expunges heroically a family curse and demonstrates reassuringly the sufficiency of reason” (Kissane). 

Contemporary ownership inscription to front paste-down.  A very good copy, some rubbing and fraying to extremities, and to spine panel, spine panel a little faded, with some loss to gilt lettering. Text block leaning slightly, and light offsetting to endpapers. James and John M. Kissane, “Sherlock Holmes and the Ritual of Reason”. 

James and John M. Kissane, “Sherlock Holmes and the Ritual of Reason”. Green, A26, a.  .

Stock Code: 245535