Crowborough Edition of Memories and Adventures

The two people who visit my blog may know that I enjoy finding personal connections in books. 

Here's a nice example, but it of course leaves me with questions.

I just received a copy of Memories and Adventures - it's a wonderful book and this is unique for me: it's the fifth copy I own. In this case it is the 1930 edition published as part of The Crowborough Edition of twenty four volumes. There is a nice summary of the series at the ACD Encyclopedia. There were 760 numbered sets created, with Volume 1 of the series signed by Conan Doyle. Sets are available from booksellers, ranging in price from US$3,000 up to $28,000.

In the case of the copy of Memories and Adventures I purchased was a single volume, and the bookseller did not have any other copies of the series.

The book is described as "clean and no wear, a few marginal nicks of d.j., covered in mylar {I replaced the aged discolored mylar and took this photo of the DJ before re-covering}. Uneven page ends. No marks."

One other point: the book was described as "ex-library: Library. The U. of California, Santa Barbara bookplate. No other Ex. Lib. notations" and that's true. Apart from the UCSB 'Special Collections' bookplate lightly attached to the page, there are no other stamps or markings one might normally expect. The library call number typed onto the bookplate indicates that this book was volume 24 of the series. It also suggests the UCSB library held the full Crowborough set. 

There is a second bookplate in the book, the owner's bookplate of John Francis Neylan (1885-1960). The bookplate was designed by William H. Wilke and printed by John Henry Nash, the famous California printer

Neylan has a long Wikipedia entry. Neylan was born in New York, studied law, and moved to California to become a reporter.  He was noted San Francisco lawyer, and (relevant perhaps to this book) was chairman of the Board of Regents of the University of California. He was also William Randolph Hearst's chief attorney with close ties to the Hearst newspapers, and had political clout and considerable wealth.

A final point on the book. It was 'strictly limited' to 760 sets, yet this book is not numbered. Why? Was it up to the owner to copy the series numbering from the first volume? That doesn't seem likely.

Neylan died in 1960. What was the order of ownership? Did Neylan's purchase the set of books in 1930, and they transferred to UCSB after his death? Or did Neylan acquire UCSB library books surplus to needs? I think the latter - transferred to him by the University, then into other private hands after 1960 when the series was broken up.  

There is a Crowborough set in the University of California system at Berkeley, but no volumes remain at Santa Barbara.