Uncle Bernac

London: Smith, Elder, & Co.,, 1897. I dare say that I had already read my uncle's letter a hundred times,
and I am sure that I knew it by heart"

DOYLE, A[rthur] Conan. Uncle Bernac. A Memory of the Empire. London: Smith, Elder, & Co., 1897.

First English edition. Octavo (7 1/2 x 5 inches; 191 x 127 mm.). x, 300, [8, publishers advertisements] pp. Monotone frontispiece (with tissue-guard) and eleven monotone plates by Robert Sauber. Three leaves with slightly creased corners, a few light marginal stains, otherwise very good.

Publisher's red cloth, front cover blocked and titled in gilt, spine lettered in gilt, black coated endpapers. Inner hinges cracked, spine ends and corners a little rubbed. A good copy.

12,500 copies were published on 14th May 1897 priced 6/-.

"I dare say that I had already read my uncle's letter a hundred times, and I am sure that I knew it by heart. None the less I took it out of my pocket, and, sitting on the side of the lugger, I went over it again with as much attention as if it were for the first time. It was written in a prim, angular hand, such as one might expect from a man who had begun life as a village attorney, and it was addressed to Louis de Laval, to the care of William Hargreaves, of the Green Man in Ashford, Kent. The landlord had many a hogshead of untaxed French brandy from the Normandy coast, and the letter had found its way by the same hands..." (Chapter I - The Coast of France).

Robert Herman Sauber (1868-1936) was a British painter and illustrator.

Green and Gibson A21a.