Super Copy of Sherlock Holmes' Debut Estimated At $375,000-$600,000

The only known inscribed copy, apart from the author's own, of the first printing of A Study in Scarlet, the first appearance of Sherlock Holmes, will be auctioned at Sotheby's - London on July 15, 2010. Published in Beeton's Christmas Annual, November 1887, it is estimated to sell for £250,000 - £400,000 ($375,000 - $600,000).

Arthur Conan Doyle, at the time a respected though not particularly successful doctor in his mid-twenties, sold the story and copyright to the publisher, Ward, Lock and Co., for £25 ($37).

There are only three signed or inscribed copies recorded of this monument in  the detective genre of literature, one of the rarest and most highly sought books of modern times, (only twenty copies in U.S. and British libraries and merely eleven in private hands) a volume keenly desired by Doyle and/or detective fiction collectors all over the world: the author's copy, currently in the possession of the Estate of Dame Jean Conan Doyle (the author's youngest daughter, who died in 1997); that under notice; and a copy at Yale's Beineke Library. The copy at the Beineke Library, tragically however, was mutilated, its inscribed page excised at some point prior to March 2003, when the crime was discovered. This, then, is one of only two signed or inscribed copies known to exist.

Inscribed on the front endpaper, January 9, 1914.

"This is the very first independent book of mine which ever was published"

This copy was bound by Zaehnsdorf, c. 1914, in three-quarter morocco with the original color-printed wrappers preserved.

For many Boomers and below, their first exposure to Sherlock Holmes was through movies, the series starring Basil Rathbone providing the introduction with the many subsequent television and film incarnations of the master of deduction firmly and indelibly imprinting the character upon modern Western culture. The four Holmes novels and fifty-six short stories continue to attract and fascinate readers 123 years after this, Sherlock's first case.

 Classic Sherlock: Deerstalker hat, calabash pipe, and magnifying glass.

Boomers may have also met Sherlock and A Study in Scarlet through Classics Illustrated comic books, as did this writer.

#33, January 1947. 
Containing A Study in Scarlet and The Hound of the Baskervilles.

  #110, August 1953. First Separate Comics Edition.

The first published and first comics edition of A Study in Scarlet share a similar literary and publishing culture. Both are pulp editions. After unsuccessfully trying to place the story with  traditional publishing houses Doyle finally broke down and sold it to Ward, Lock and Co. which had a reputation for making, in Doyle's words, "a specialty of cheap and sensational literature," the very definition of pulp lit. And, significantly, publishers of pulp literature routinely bought all rights, outright, from writers; the pulps were where many struggling authors paid their dues in lieu of earning royalties. Note, too, the sensationalistic, blood-red-bold-lettered wrapper design right out of the pulp playbook, created to attract the eye and invade and stir the imagination. This is one of the great works of pulp fiction.

The copy under notice possesses sterling provenance; it was once owned by famed Holmes collector and Baker Street Irregular, William S. Hall. As astounding as its estimated market value is, it would be dwarfed, I believe, by the Doyle copy currently in the possession of the Jean Doyle Estate; it's the holy grail of Holmesiana. Should that copy ever come to auction, I think it not unreasonable to estimate its market value at $700,000 - $900,000.

I'd like to acknowledge Sotheby's English Literature Specialists, Peter Selley, Dr. Philip Errington, and Dr. Gabriel Heaton, one of whom or in concert have written one of the best auction catalogue descriptions for a rare book I've read in quite a while. The full e-catalogue can be found here.

DOYLE, Sir Arthur Conan. A Study In Scarlet [in] Beeton's Christmas Annual, Twenty-eight Season. London: Ward, Lock and Co., [November 1887]. Illustrations by D.H. Friston.

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Continuing  our ongoing exploration of bibliographies of dubious worth as yet unwritten, i.e. Bobliography: A Bibliography of Books Written By Guys Named Bob, we add A Study in Scarlet to The Crimson Tidal Wave: A Check-List of Swell Literature With "Scarlet" in the Title.

1.  The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1850).

2.  A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle (1887).

3.  In Scarlet and Grey by Thomas Hardy (1896).

4.  The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy (1905).

5.  The Scarlet Bat by Fergis Hume (1905).

6.  The Scarlet Plague by Jack London (1915).

7.   Scarlet Sister Mary by Julia Peterkin (1928).

8.   A Scarlet Pansy by Robert Scully (1933).

9.   Scarlet Fever by George F. Dick (1937).

10. The Scarlet Ruse by John D. McDonald (1980).

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Hansom Cab Murder Is First Blockbuster Crime Novel

 A Hansom Cab Stand by P. Stahl, 1889.

The author was a law clerk who wanted to be a playwright. When he failed miserably at it, he decided to write a novel instead. But he had no idea what to write so,

"I enquired of a leading Melbourne bookseller what style of book he sold most of. He replied that the detective stories of Gaboriau had a large sale; and as, at this time, I had never even heard of this author, I bought all his works — eleven or thereabouts — and read them carefully. The style of these stories attracted me, and I determined to write a book of the same class; containing a mystery, a murder, and a description of low life in Melbourne.

"Having completed the book, I tried to get it published, but everyone to whom I offered it refused even to look at the manuscript on the grounds that no Colonial could write anything worth reading."  

Undeterred, he finally had it privately printed.

First edition, Melbourne, 1886.

The book, published in 1886, was The Mystery of a Hansom Cab. An instant best-seller, it is considered to be “one of the most successful crime and mystery stories ever to be published” (Quayle). Its first printing of 5,000 copies sold out within weeks. Three subsequent printings, each of 10,000 copies, sold out, as well. It should have been a cash cow.

Yet it was a cash clunker for the author. 

 Fergus W. Hume.

After the initial 35,000 copies sold, Fergus W. Hume (1859-1932), born in England, raised in New Zealand, and living in Australia, sold the copyright for £50 to a character of dubious ethics, who then hot-footed it to London, established the Hansom Cab Publishing Company, had as many copies printed each month as possible, and within eighteen months of the book’s initial publication sold 250,000 books. 

In 1889, the Hansom Cab Publishing Company changed its name to Trischler & Company, Trischler being the shepherd who fleeced the lamb of his copyright. From 1889 through 1895, Trischler printed and sold 5,000 copies every month before selling the copyright to Jarrold & Son. By the turn of the century, it had been translated into twelve languages. It is the first crime novel to achieve international blockbuster status.

 First U.K. edition, 1887.

What’s the big deal?

Hume knew how to write a page-turner. The book begins as if you’ve just tuned into an episode “ripped from the headlines,” of Law & Order, the basic facts known about the crime indeed laid out as an extract from a Melbourne newspaper: Hansom cab with murder victim inside pulls up to a police station. The victim has a chloroform-soaked silk handkerchief tied around his mouth. The assassin is unknown. Time for Samuel Gorby, of the Detective Squad, Melbourne Police, to solve the crime.

Hume wrote as if he were afraid that readers, if given an opportunity, might flee when they reached the end of each paragraph. The result was a novel that dared readers to get a snack, use the bathroom, feed the kids, go to bed.

When he learned of The Mystery of a Hansom Cab’s success in England, Hume immediately raced to London. Steamship travel being what it was, the race took a few months during which he wrote another two novels. And what did he do when he finally reached London? A fool once, a fool again: He sold the books to Tischler.

 Later edition.

He had better financial luck after getting Tischler out of his life. He made money from Madame Midas (1889) and its sequel, Miss Mephistopheles (1890) but they were tales of the Australian Gold Rush  and they, as well as everything else that Hume wrote, never achieved the fantastic success of ...Hansom Cab.

An unsolvable murder. A brilliant detective. And a novel that would lead crime fiction into the future.  Not a great book, though highly readable, its importance lies in providing a model for the modern detective  novel. “The Mystery of a Hansom Cab was published at the end of we may term the pre-Holmesian era. It appeared only a year before the first printing of A Study in Scarlet” (Quayle).

Only two copies of the first edition, first printing are known to exist. Both are at Mitchell Library,  in Sydney, Australia.

The book was adapted to film three times, in 1911, 1915, and 1925.

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HUME, Fergus W. The Mystery of a Hansom Cab. Melbourne: Kemp & Boyce, 1886. First edition. Octavo. Pictorial wrappers.

Quayle, Eric. Collector's Book of Detective Fiction, pp. 51-54. Clymer & Greene, Victorian Detective Fiction pp. 123-124. Hubin p. 210. A Haycraft-Queen Cornerstone volume.

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Image of Stahl's Hansom Cab Stand courtesy 1st Art Gallery.
Image of the first edition of 1886 op. cit. Quayle.

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The Miracle of the Two-Week Rare Book: A Nancy Drew Mystery

We rare book collectors and dealers have, apparently, been asleep. While we’ve been aslumber, the meaning of “rare” has undergone a radical transformation guaranteed to startle us to wide-eyed wakefulness.

“RARE NANCY DREW APPLEWOOD THE MESSAGE IN THE HOLLOW OAK Item #200366792295. FROM A SMOKE AND PET-FREE HOME, THIS IS A FIRST OR SECOND EDITION!!! HOLLOW OAK IS A RARITY- I DID NOT FIND 1 ON EBAY INCLUDING COMPLETED AUCTIONS!!!"

Once upon a time, Ebay provided auction records for the prior three months. Far from a reliable indicator of rarity at that short interval, not too long ago the time frame was reduced to an absurd thirty days. Now it’s a mere two weeks.

Hasn’t been seen in two weeks! Alert the media!

I’m not a friend of Ebay but I do know a few serious and savvy collectors who’ve picked up some good material through the site but only because they knew a whole lot more about the book being offered than the seller and asked important, key questions.

On balance, however, Ebay continues to be a rare book source where those who know little if anything about what they have sell to those who know little if anything about what they’re doing. It’s still caveat emptor-land in capital letters.

Now, as it turns out, The Message in the Hollow Oak, Nancy Drew Mystery #12 (1935) is indeed a rarity. But this Ebay seller’s complete description is strictly Earth vs. the Flying Saucers:

“FROM A SMOKE AND PET-FREE HOME, THIS IS A FIRST OR SECOND EDITION!!! THE NUMBER LINE IS "10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2". YOU ARE BIDDING ON HARDBACK "THE MESSAGE IN THE HOLLOW OAK" IN VERY GOOD CONDITION- COMPLETELY UNMARKED ASIDE FROM BOOKSTORE PRICE MARKED INSIDE, ONLY THE MOST MINIMAL EDGEWEAR. HOLLOW OAK IS A RARITY- I DID NOT FIND 1 ON EBAY INCLUDING COMPLETED AUCTIONS!!! COPYRIGHT 1999; 4 GLOSSY INTERNALS !!! INTERNALS ARE THE HOLY GRAIL- MOST NANCY DREW FANS HAVE NOT SEEN ALL 4. . IMPROVE YOUR SUMMER BY READING THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF THE TITIAN-HAIRED INGENUE AND YOUNGEST DETECTIVE IN RIVER HEIGHTS! IMPROVE YOUR NDQ BY SEEING THE 4 RARE GLOSSY PICS INSIDE AND READING MORE ABOUT THE MOST CLEVER (AND PRETTIEST) TEENAGER THIS SIDE OF THE MUSKOKA RIVER AND HER DADDY LAWYER CARSON DREW'S DARLING! I'LL THROW YOU A TIDBIT: DID YOU KNOW THAT ORIGINALLY THE 16 YEAR OLD NANCY HAD A GUN? YES, THE PERFECTLY COIFFED, SUMMER FROCK-WEARING HIGH-SCHOOL GIRL PACKED HEAT! I BELIEVE THAT SHE KEPT HER WEAPON IN THE GLOVE COMPARTMENT (ALONG WITH SHORT WHITE GLOVES, JUST IN CASE) OF HER SPORTY BLUE ROADSTER! NANCY WAS MADE TO BE 18 AND BLONDE (SHE WAS ORIGINALLY 'TITIAN-HAIRED") IN MORE RECENT TIMES. SEE MY OTHER AUCTIONS FOR SIMILAR- ALWAYS CHEAPEST SHIPPING, IN THIS CASE FREE- NEVER ANY HANDLING!!!”

Having plowed through the seller’s all-caps, exclamation point-happy, smoke and pet-free garrulous paean to sixteen year old titian-haired innocent gun moll gumshoes with white gloves, the sharp eyed will have noticed that the copyright date for the copy in question is “1999.” Not even close to the first edition. But “always cheapest shipping, in this case free.”

Contrast the Ebay seller’s description for his copy of this book with the description provided by Tavistock Books, whose proprietor, Vic Zoschak, is a solid, reliable and trustworthy veteran of the rare book trade:

KEENE, Carolyn (pseudonym, here, of Mildred A. Wirt). The Message in the Hollow Oak. New York: Grosset & Dunlap., (1935). 12mo. 1st edition, 7th printing (Farah 1937A-7). iv, 218, [2] pp. Adverts last 2 pages. Light blue cloth binding with orange lettering (Format #3). Orange topstain. Orange silhouette eps. Dust jacket with white spine, wear & soiling). Frontis + 3 inserted plates by Russell H. Tandy.

Vic accurately provides all that the concerned collector needs to know without needless palaver substituting for knowledge. The most basic and important piece of info is offered, the bibliographical citation. Vic charges for shipping, a small price to pay for dealing with an individual who has invested decades into learning the trade and knowing books.

It’s the difference between peace of mind when buying and having to give a piece of one’s mind to the seller after buying.

If this Ebay seller wanted to know how rare the book actually was, all he had to do was log on to the great aggregator, Addall, where Vic's copy is listed for anyone to see, if he knew where to look. It doesn't get much more basic than Addall, which the trade has been using for years to get an accurate sense of the marketplace.

Ebay remains the wild, wild west. Keep a roscoe in the glove compartment for protection and take off the white gloves when buying rare books there lest they get soiled. That's the real message in the hollow oak.

Hat’s off to Jennifer of the Series Books for Girls blogspot for the lead.
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