This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 3/13/2021
DOYLE, Arthur Conan (1859–1930). The Hound of the Baskervilles. London: George Newnes, 1902. Crown 8vo. Half–title, illustrated with 16 plates including frontispiece by Sydney Paget. Publisher’s scarlet cloth blocked and titled in black and gilt (spine gently sunned, few pale spots to title, original ownership inscription to half-title). Housed in an attractive full plum Levant clamshell box with gilt titling and tolling in compartments. FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE with “you” for “your” on p. 13, line 3, and the illustration facing p.76, which had been reversed in the Strand Magazine, is again reversed. Provenance: original ownership signature and notation of William G.E. Bagg (1847–1923) on title in his handwriting: “Xmas 1902/W. G. E. Bagg/(From Arthur)”. POSSIBLY A PRESENTATION COPY of one of the best-known Sherlock Holmes novels that was originally based on an English legend (possibly of the Black Hound of Hergest) told to Doyle by a journalist friend, Bertram Fletcher Robinson. Green and Gibson A26a. William George Erasmus Bagg, the recipient of this book, was a land surveyor in London during the 1880-90s– working near the architect Alfred Waterhouse and later Joseph Henry Ball, a dear friend of Doyle’s and the architect (also Waterhouse’s protégé) of Undershaw - Doyle’s home from 1896 to 1907 where he wrote “The Hound of the Baskervilles”. With the close proximity of Bagg’s office to the architects, it is probable that he was the surveyor of the Undershaw estate.