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Details
STARRETT, Vincent. The Unique Hamlet: A Hitherto Unchronicled Adventure of Mr. Sherlock Holmes. Chicago: privately printed, 1920.
8o. Original brown boards, printed paper spine label (corners and foot of spine lightly bumped). Provenance: W. MacDonald MacKay (bookplate and presentation inscription).
FIRST EDITION OF THE AUTHOR'S FIRST SHERLOCK HOLMES STORY. PRESENTATION COPY, INSCRIBED AND SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR on the front free endpaper: "Dear MacKay--Warmest greetings at Christmas! Dec. 1920." The Unique Hamlet is, "one of the rarest pieces of Sherlockiana--it is virtually nonextant" (Queen, p. 72). The present is a rarity among rarities: according to Starrett, 200 copies of The Unique Hamlet were printed; half were intended "For the friends of Vincent Starrett" and half "For the friends of Walter M. Hill," as designated on the title-page. Due to an oversight, however, the vast majority were imprinted with Hill's name. LIMITED EDITION, ONE OF ONLY 10 COPIES reading "FOR THE FRIENDS OF VINCENT STARRETT."
The Unique Hamlet is generally considered to be the best Sherlock pastiche ever written. The Hamlet of the title is a presentation copy of the quarto edition, and Holmes's client is the frantic book collector who lost it. VERY FINE, EXCEEDINGLY RARE. De Waal 6108; Queen's Quorum 66; Honce 7; Baker Street Gasogene, 1961, vol. 1, no. 1, p. 34 (included with this lot).
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FIRST EDITION OF THE AUTHOR'S FIRST SHERLOCK HOLMES STORY. PRESENTATION COPY, INSCRIBED AND SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR on the front free endpaper: "Dear MacKay--Warmest greetings at Christmas! Dec. 1920." The Unique Hamlet is, "one of the rarest pieces of Sherlockiana--it is virtually nonextant" (Queen, p. 72). The present is a rarity among rarities: according to Starrett, 200 copies of The Unique Hamlet were printed; half were intended "For the friends of Vincent Starrett" and half "For the friends of Walter M. Hill," as designated on the title-page. Due to an oversight, however, the vast majority were imprinted with Hill's name. LIMITED EDITION, ONE OF ONLY 10 COPIES reading "FOR THE FRIENDS OF VINCENT STARRETT."
The Unique Hamlet is generally considered to be the best Sherlock pastiche ever written. The Hamlet of the title is a presentation copy of the quarto edition, and Holmes's client is the frantic book collector who lost it. VERY FINE, EXCEEDINGLY RARE. De Waal 6108; Queen's Quorum 66; Honce 7; Baker Street Gasogene, 1961, vol. 1, no. 1, p. 34 (included with this lot).