Rare First Edition of The Lost World Plus Sidney Paget's Waistcoat to Auction
First English edition of The Lost World in original dust jacket
Only the second known first edition copy of The Lost World by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in its rare dust jacket comes up for auction tomorrow at Potter & Potter's Select Rarities: Exceptional Books and Paper Treasures sale.
In February 2024 Fine Books & Collections reported on the sale at Potter of what was then believed to be the only such copy of the first English trade edition (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1912) which went for $12,000 at Potter as part of a large collection of Sherlockiana and Arthur Conan Doyle items. The cover shows an image of Conan Doyle disguised as Professor Challenger. This edition has an estimate of $6,000 - $12,000.
Other Sherlock Holmes items in the auction include a first edition, second issue of The Sign of Four (London: Spencer Blackett, 1890, estimate: $6,000 - $8,000) and The Hound of the Baskervilles (London: George Newnes Limited, 1902, estimate: $5,000 - $7,000), a first edition, first issue. Alongside these items will be illustrator Sidney Paget's brown wide-ribbed corduroy waistcoat which was used by him for the illustration A Drunken-Looking Groom in A Scandal in Bohemia (estimate: $1,200 - $1,800).
A larger collection of Conan Doyle first editions, assembled in the 1940s and 1950s according to the consignor and in storage since the 1960s, follows in November.
Other highlights include:
- illustrator Corinne Malvern's original book artwork for Frosty the Snow Man [New York: The Golden Press, ca. 1950] written by Annie Bedford (pseudonym of Jane Werner Watson) which has an estimate of $20,000 - $30,000
- first editions of Lewis Carroll's Sylvie and Bruno and Sylvie and Bruno Concluded (London: Macmillan and Co., 1889, 1893, estimate: $6,000 - $8,000), inscribed on the half-title by Carroll to Alice Wilson Fox who claimed to have provided the inspiration for Through the Looking-Glass
- A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (London: J. Johnson, 1792) by Mary Wollstonecraft, first edition, estimate: $12,000 - $15,000
- a signed autograph letter by Oscar Wilde written in New York, late 1882, to musician and actor Thomas Whiffen during Wilde's lecture tour in the U.S (estimate: $14,000 - $16,000); Whiffen's wife, Blanche originated the role of Mrs. Marchmont in the American production of Wilde's An Ideal Husband
