Some books from London - Aug 2023

On my trip to England recently (Aug 2023) I kept an eye out for books, and did manage to purchase some ACD publications. I am definitely not in a position to buy expensive editions, or books with perfect dustjackets, and sometimes I like how a book looks so don't care that the binding isn't great. I just look out for books that are pleasing to the eye.

I've already posted about the copy of the 'White Company' that I purchased - a cheap copy with a beautiful historical connection: https://221bcooee.blogspot.com/2023/08/a-book-is-more-than-just-book-gisela.html 

Anyway, here are the four books I purchased - they are as much souvenirs as anything. 

This is a copy of 'A Study In Scarlet' published by Ward Lock & Co. There is not publication date in the book, but there is a date written in the front: 16th Jan 1953. The ACD Encyclopedia suggests this is the 1954 edition - and while mine is hand-dated a year earlier it is certainly the same cover art  (https://www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/index.php/Ward,_Lock_%26_Co.) .

This is a copy of 'The Complete Sherlock Holmes Long Stories' published by John Murray. The publication details indicate this copy was published in 1966, the twelfth impression. As Nick Utechin points out in his SHSL publication 'From Abbey to Wiles' on cover illustrators, this dust jacket design was created by Charles Keeping (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Keeping).

Well this copy of 'The Tragedy of Korosko' published by Hodder & Stoughton is in pretty poor shape. It doesn't have a publication date either. But what this book does have is an autograph in pencil by ACD. While it is probably the cheapest signed copy ever, the nice man at the rare book sellers spent time working through other examples (that he himself had used to be certain it was legitimate). It was quite funny as I said "look if it's signed it's automatically way out of my range" and he pulled this from behind other books and said "this one probably isn't". He may have taken pity. It's definitely an unusual one, but I really like it and it'll be special is the first (only?) ACD autograph I ever have.

This copy of 'The Last Adventures of Sherlock Holmes' was published by George Newnes in 1901, and is called a 'Souvenir Edition' (it is not the first edition - I believe that was 1897).

But here's an interesting thing about this book. Inside was a piece of notepaper with writing in ballpoint pen. The writer/owner is on a bit of a code kick, and appears to be running some numerology analysis of "The Final Problem", and specifically the paragraph about arriving in Meiringen. Any insights greatly appreciated.

Anyway - these are my souvenirs of the trip!!