Sherlock Holmes: The Schocken Edition [4 volumes: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes; Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes; The Hound of the Baskervilles; The Return of Sherlock Holmes, ]

New York: Schocken Books. Near Fine in Near Fine dj. 1975-1976. 1st Editions Thus. Hardcover. [the books are only minimally shelfworn, and each has the previous owner's name plus date & place of purchase in ink at the top of the front endpaper (all were bought at the same time and place: Vroman's in Pasadena, California, which is further attested to by the presence of the store's small label at the upper left of the front endpaper); "Adventures" and "Memoirs" also have a couple of small check-marks next to titles in their Tables of Contents; the dust jackets, apart from some slight age-toning, are virtually as-new with the exception of "The Hound," for which there is some uneven sun-tanning to the front panel, and "Memoirs," which has a small tape-repair at the top of the spine to mend some minor damage]. (B&W illustrations) A uniform 4-volume set presenting facsimile reproductions of the first publications of the Sherlock Holmes stories that appeared in The Strand Magazine between 1891 and 1904 (encompassing, of course, the interregnum that followed Conan Doyle's killing-off of Holmes in the December 1893 story "The Adventure of the Final Problem"), including all the original Sidney Paget illustrations. In fact, the Sidney Paget-ness seems to be the point of this entire series: it's not the complete Holmes canon (it presents only 39 of the total of 62 stories written by Conan Doyle), but it does contain all the stories that were illustrated by Paget and published in The Strand Magazine. (In the canon, "The Hound" is considered a single story, although it's really a novel (and was published as such in book form), but it was first published in nine installments in The Strand.) The first two S.H. stories, "The Sign of Four" and "A Study in Scarlet," had appeared in other publications; and beginning with "The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge," first published in 1908, other illustrators took over from Paget, who had inconveniently died in January of that year. Introductions to the present volumes have been provided by Steven Marcus ("Adventures"), Samuel Rosenberg ("Return" and "Hound"), and Leslie Fiedler ("Memoirs"). And the dust-jacket blurb is no exaggeration: these facsimile reprints are indeed "the best possible way to be introduced to the master sleuth." ****Sold as a set only; NOTE that additional postage charges will be assessed for international shipping, due to the combined weight of the four volumes; if this concerns you, please contact us for a shipping quote before placing your order.**** .