DOYLE, Arthur Conan (1859-1930). The White Company. London: Smith, Elder, & Co., 1891.
3 volumes, 8vo. Half-titles; publisher’s ads at the end of volumes II and III. (Some edgewear and spotting to last few leaves of vol. I, very occasional spotting or soiling at margins). Original red-brown cloth blocked and lettered in black, gilt-lettered spines, floral endpapers (recased, joints worn, spines slightly darkened, extreme ends and fore-corners rubbed, some minor stains or soiling to covers); each in a custom folding box. Provenance: contemporary ownership inscription dated 1893 (vol. I title-page, half-title in vol. II, contents leaf in vol. III); Roy Pilot (collector’s gilt-stamp on boxes).
FIRST ENGLISH EDITION, ONE OF 750 COPIES. Doyle once remarked in a symposium on the book he had most enjoyed writing, the author stated: “Of my novels The White Company gave me most pleasure. I was young and full of the first joy of life and action, and I think I got some of it into my pages. When I wrote the last line, I remember that I cried: ‘Well, I’ll never beat that.’ And threw the inky pen at the opposite wall, which was papered with duck’s egg green!”. Green and Gibson A8a; Sadleir 752; Woolf 1923.