CONAN

Sentiment Thanks for your good wishes | Sincerely yours | Oscar Slater | 23/4.27. Image (= portrait) appears to be a drawing extracted from a newspaper or periodical. Backing paper, 8 x 11.5, portrait and text (slightly overflowing) on laid down pink paper, c.9.5 x 6cm. SEE IMAGE. Note: a. Oscar Joseph Slater (8 January 1872 – 31 January 1948) was the victim of a notorious miscarriage of justice in Scotland.

Pp.1, 2, 4 [missing 3] with additional unnumbered page entitled bibliography of [...] the Detective Story, folio, connected with stud creating hole which only marginally affects the text, good condition. Lightly corrected MS. An early, pioneering study of the genre as it developed, as a phenomenon similar to literary predecessors (Elizabethan drama). He associates the craze for the detective story with the (post) First World War, but (obviously) finds topoi in Sherlcok Holmes and Murders in the Rue Morgue, citing R.

One page, 12mo, bifolium, good condition. Since I saw you last I hve not neen well, and have in consequence not been able to make progress with the work, on the completion of which depended my being able to undertake and illustrations for you book. | I regret that it is so, but am obliged to say that it is not in my power to furnish any drawings for your work before Christmas. | Your book, howevere, is so very well supplied with illustrators of note that the absence of my name in the list cannot be of any consequence.

On 3.5 x 5 cm slip, laid down on slightly larger rectangle of paper, removed from an album. In fair condition, lightly aged and worn. A neat, firm signature, on a small slip of paper. Presumably cut from a letter, in response to a request for an autograph.

Two pages, cr. 8vo, fold mark, one punch- hole text good and complete. She has been listening to "Any Questions" (on the wireless) where "the publicity given to the recent murder trials" was discussed.

Three pages, 12mo, bifolium, first page a little grubby, last page (blank) stained, fold marks, mainly good condition. The central subject of this letter is the "suit" which he was fighting (see Note below - accused of "Undue influence" with a deed of gift of £30,000). He thanks his correspondent for a prospectus, adding, "You are doubtless aware that I have a most important suit in Chancery now pending. It is to be hoped that no compromise will be made for it will be a means of placing our good and true cause on a footing which hitherto it has not occupied.

Twelve pages, cr. 8vo, brown illustrated paper wraps, a little grubby, with fold mark at middle, contents good. Begins with editorial, "The Editor's Chair" in which C.P. Scott (presumably) discusses this Christmas number, revealing, among other things that Conan Doyle had been invited to contribute an "exciting" ghost story but failed them. The issue is signed "Montague" on the front wrap, and C.E. Montague is the subject of an article (with photograph), and author of a letter on the Letters page. No copy on COPAC or in Manchester Univ. Lib. catalogue.

24pp., 8vo, paginated 161-184. In fair condition, on lightly aged and worn paper. Roberts contributes 'The Cult of Sherlock'; Frank Swinnerton, 'Holmes - World Figure'; Darwin, 'The Great Holmes Joke'; Howlett and Pointer, 'Holmes on Stage and Screen'; Paget, 'He made Holmes real' ('In this article Winifred Paget writes of her father, Sidney Paget, whose drawings, says Frank Swinnerton on another page, made Holmes "the most universally familiar imaginary figure in two hemispheres'.

The Oxford DNB entry on Sir Walter Besant states that, 'Concerned to cultivate better understanding with North America, Besant worked in the last two years of his life for the Atlantic Union.' In fact it was Besant who founded the club in 1900, with Conan Doyle and others, with the object, according to The Times, 22 February 1900, 'of drawing together the various English-speaking peoples and strengthening the bonds of union by the formation of ties of personal friendship among individual members'.

Photographs: All black and white prints. The first (21 x 15 cm) a portrait of Waller (reproduced in Baxendale, p. 26, below). The second (23 x 17 cm) a family photograph of six Edwardian individuals, three younger ones (including a woman and with Waller at centre) standing, and three older men seated. The other six (all 14 x 8.5 cm and taken at the same time) showing Waller and family outdoors: one of him rowing, and one with a smiling woman (presumably his wife). Overall condition of the photographs is fair. They are lightly-aged, with a little creasing here and there.

8vo: xxiv + 120 + viii pp. In original blue printed wraps. Good, in grubby, lightly worn wraps. Thumbprint in margin of one page. Numerous illustrated advertisements at front and rear. Front wrap headed 'TO THE NORTH POLE BY BALLOON! Special Interview with Mr. Andrée.' Many illustrations. Story's piece on Andrée's balloon voyage covers fifteen pages (77-91) and features 25 illustrations and diagrams. Among the other contributions are an installment of Conan Doyle's 'Rodney Stone' and an early illustrated article on X-ray photography, 'The New Photography' by Alfred W. Porter.

Dimensions: 17.5 x 13.5 cm. 64 pp. In original coloured paper covers. Priced at 10d, and thus the British edition and not one produced for the foreign market. Good and tight, on browned paper. Attractive image on front cover showing a bemused Holmes puffing on his pipe as he wanders down a country-house corridor whose walls are covered in paintings, while the spectral figure of the hound's head looms above him.Covers lightly worn and slightly damaged by the rusting of the staples. Both stories are told in comic strip form.

12mo: 97 pp. A good, tight copy, on aged paper, in contemporary calf binding gilt. All edges gilt, marble endpapers, dentelles. Binding rubbed and worn. Apparently complete (and certainly complete as bound), containing all four stories listed in the National Library of Ireland entry, but having 97 rather than the 167 pp in that entry. A landmark work in Irish literature, highly regarded as a pioneering attempt to modernize Gaelic narrative.