DOYLE | The Hound of the Baskervilles, 1902, first edition

DOYLE, SIR ARTHUR CONAN

The Hound of the Baskervilles. George Newnes, 1902

8vo, FIRST EDITION, 16 plates after Sidney Paget, original pictorial red cloth, upper cover with hound design stamped in gilt and black, spine gilt, lacking front free endpaper, some browning and spotting throughout, offsetting to lower endpapers, cloth torn slightly on spine, spine faded, corners slightly bumped, a few other scratches and marks to covers

The Hound of the Baskervilles, one of the most celebrated crime novels of all time, was inspired by Bertram Fletcher Robinson (Daily Express correspondent during the Boer War), with whom Doyle struck up a friendship when travelling back on the same ship from Cape Town. On a golfing holiday in 1901 Robinson mentioned the legend of the Black Hound of Hergest associated with the Vaughan family of Hergest Court in Herefordshire. Doyle subsequently re-located his version of the story, with Sherlock Holmes as the main protagonist, to Dartmoor in Devon, Robinson's native county. Holmes wrote to his mother on 2 April 1901: "Robinson and I are exploring the moor over our Sherlock Holmes book. I think it will work out splendidly... Holmes is at his very best, and it is a highly dramatic idea"

LITERATURE:

Green and Gibson A26.a