THE FATE OF FENELLA. A Novel

1892. New York: Cassell Publishing Company, [1892]. Original light grey cloth stamped in black, with a facsimile scrap of newspaper (touting this project) affixed to the front cover.

First American Edition, published six months after the London edition, of this collaborative novel written by 24 noted authors of the day -- including (in addition to Doyle) Bram Stoker, Florence Marryat, Frances Eleanor Trollope, and G. Manville Fenn. Doyle wrote Chapter IV, "Between Two Fires," on pp 41-50. This book was the brain-child of J.S. Wood, the editor and proprietor of The Gentlewoman. To quote from the Publisher's Note: The publishers claim with no little satisfaction that in this book they offer the reading public a genuine novelty. The idea of a novel written by twenty-four writers is certainly an original one. The ladies and gentlemen who have written "The Fate of Fenella" have done their work quite independently of each other. There has been collaboration but not consultation. As each one wrote a chapter it was passed on to the next... This copy is in remarkably clean, just-about-fine condition; atypically, there is no damage to the front cover's newspaper clipping. Quite an uncommon book, particularly in this condition. Green & Gibson C1.