The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle

CONAN DOYLE, Arthur. The Hound of the Baskervilles. London, George Newnes, 1902.

First edition in book form, first impression, of Sherlock Holmes’s literary return after ‘The Final Problem’.

‘Based on a local legend of a spectral hound that haunted Dartmoor in Devonshire, the story is set in the moors at Baskerville Hall … and the action takes place mostly at night, when the terrifying hound howls for blood. After Sir Charles Baskerville is found dead with his face twisted in stark terror, Holmes is called upon to protect his heir, Sir Henry Baskerville…’ (Britannica).

The story was initially serialized in the Strand Magazine from August 1901 to April 1902. Although The Hound of the Baskervilles was published nearly a decade after the story ‘The Final Problem’, the events unfold before the detective’s shocking ‘death’ at the Reichenbach Falls.

Octavo, pp. 358, [1]; frontispiece (lacking tissue guard) and fifteen plates by Sidney Paget; tiny worm hole at end not affecting text, a very good copy; original red cloth, lettering and art nouveau decoration in gilt by Alfred Garth Jones to spine and cover (signed ‘A.J.G.’), on front cover incorporating black silhouette of hound, top edge red (some light foxing, spine a little sunned).