[STARRETT, Vincent (1886-1974), contributor]. A Catalogue of Original Manuscripts and First and Other Important Editions of the Tales of Sherlock Holmes. Compiled by David Randall. New York: The Scriber Book Store, [1943].
4to. Original printed yellow wrappers, contents corner stapled as issued (spine mostly detached, extremities lightly soiled, small stain on rear cover); original mailer.
A PRE-PUBLICATION COPY OF THE FIRST RARE BOOK CATALOGUE TO BE DEVOTED TO A SINGLE DETECTIVE, INSCRIBED BY THE COMPILER. It contains the original manuscript of four of the tales from the Memoirs, priced $450 each, and the complete Valley of Fear, $1,500. The “association items” at the end, such as An Inquiry into the Nature of the Ashes of Various Tobaccos (Tibet: Privately Printed, 1893) were dreamed up and annotated by Starrett and Randall. David A. Randall, was manager of the rare books department at Scribner’s Book Store between 1935 and 1956, later the head of the Lilly Library at Indiana University. He and Starrett created the memorable (now exceedingly rare) catalogue containing legitimate entries from Starrett’s collection but also convincingly fanciful ones including the fictitious tobacco story claiming not only the original work, but also an enlarged second edition. Randall and Starrett’s fabrication were soon discovered when a tobacco tycoon, who collected books upon the subject, attempted to order the second edition listed in the catalogue and asked that the rarer first edition be found for him.