THE WORKS. The White Company; Micah Clarke; The Refugees; Rodney Stone; The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes; The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes; A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of Four; The Great Shadow and Uncle Bernac; A Duet with an Occasional Chorus; Tragedy of the Korosko and the Green Flag; The Stark-Munro Letters and Round the Red Lamp; and The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard by DOYLE. ARTHUR CONAN

John Murray. London. 1903 (1917). THE AUTHOR'S EDITION. 12 volumes, complete. Limited edition of 1000 sets, numbered and signed by Arthur Conan Doyle in Volume one, The White Company. Illustrated with 24 full page plates, by Arthur Twidle (20), Sidney Paget (1), B. West Clinedinst (1), and W. B. Wollen (2), each with a printed tissue guard. ----- Finely bound in recent full dark red morocco. Spines with five raised bands, the compartments with gilt lettering and centre decorations. Single gilt ruled border to boards. Top edges gilt, others untrimmed. Some thumbing and creasing to a few pages but overall an excellent set which has been handsomely bound. ------ Only 510 of the 1000 sets were issued by Smith, Elder & Company in 1903. The remaining sets were passed to John Murray and were reissued with new title pages, still dated 1903, in 1917. This is one of those 490 sets. ------ Green and Gibson's bibliography of the works of Conan Doyle states; "The author considered this edition of his works to be of great importance: he revised parts, and added notes and a number of special introductions. He remarks in the preface that it had for some time been his ambition to have such a collection. Because of the author's friendship with Reginald Smith, he agreed to sign the thousand copies of the English issue. He was not, however, prepared to do the same for the American publisher, though he was asked. He made it known that he would only consider doing so for a considerable fee. The English issue also has the further attraction of having two illustrations in each volume rather than one." (Green & Gibson, p. 233).