The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.

DOYLE, Arthur Conan.

$11,000.00

Item Number: 133571

London: George Newnes, Limited, 1892-1894.

First editions of Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic stories starring literature’s most famous detective, with an autographed letter. Octavo, original pictorial black and gilt-stamped light blue and dark blue cloth, illustrated by Sidney Paget, patterned endpapers, all edges gilt. First issues, the first title with the street scene vignette with no text on the street sign and with “Violent” for “Violet” on p 317. With an autograph letter signed by Arthur Conan Doyle dates September 24th on his Windlesham letterhead which reads, “My dear Stilwell I am full of sympathy but it is simply implausible for me to fall into your Brownie scheme. I have a full winter before me. Then, if I get to America in April I should start off from Chicago and carry on in the West, as I have not touched that ground. Jim and Randall would make a strong combination. Rev Vale Owen comes and in January. I wonder if you could supplement him. There is responsibility experience and responsibility involved – and that’s the case. I told Lloyd George about you and he was interested in the Plan. All remembrance to Mrs. Stilwell. Yours A Conan Doyle.” The recipient, Arthur Edward Stilwell was the founder of the Kansas City, Pittsburgh and Gulf Railroad, predecessor to the Kansas City Southern Railway. He served as KCPG’s president from 1897 to 1900 and published many books after his retirement in 1912. He wrote novels, poetry and plays. He also wrote political works on world affairs and the monetary system. His writing attracted attention because in them he maintained that he had based many of his life and business decisions on the whispers of what he called brownies – nocturnal spiritual fairies that provided him with guidance. He notably claimed that his brownies had advised him not to make Galveston the Gulf terminus of his line, because that city was destined to be destroyed by a tidal wave — which it would be in 1900; he placed the terminus at a different location, which he founded and named for himself, Port Arthur. Arthur Conan Doyle and other authorities on the supernatural considered Stilwell to have the greatest psychic experiences known to man, according to a June 15, 1922, New York Times article about Stilwell’s gift. In very good condition, reinforced. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell  box made by the Harcourt Bindery.

These volumes contain such famous and memorable tales as "A Scandal in Bohemia" and "The Adventure of the Speckled Band." Of special note is the last case in the Memoirs, "The Final Problem," in which Holmes apparently meets his death in a struggle with "the Napoleon of crime," Professor Moriarty. "At one point, tiring of the detective, Doyle attempted to exterminate him… but the clamor of his admirers forced him to resurrect Holmes for several further volumes, and his popularity has waned little since" (Benet, 273). With Sidney Paget's original, iconic illustrations: "Paget's spirited illustrations… greatly assisted to popularize those stories" (DNB). "The initial 12 tales were collected between covers as The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, published in England and America in 1892; and 11 of the second 12… as The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, published in 1894. If any reader be prepared to name two other books that have given more innocent but solid pleasure, let him speak now— or hold his peace!" (Haycraft, 50).