Concept and Art

The Essential Edition of Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of a Dozen Favourites is limited to 400 copies. It consists of twelve short stories that were deemed favourite by the Arthur Conan Doyle himself.

The Adventure of the Speckled Band
The Adventure of the Red-Headed League
The Adventure of the Dancing Men
The Adventure of the Final Problem
The Adventure of a Scandal in Bohemia
The Adventure of the Empty House
The Adventure of the Five Orange Pips
The Adventure of the Second Stain
The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot
The Adventure of the Priory School
The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual
The Adventure of the Reigate Squires

This edition comes in a slipcase, featuring the title on the front part of the slipcase, done with a combination of blind and gold blocking.

The book is bound in premium Fedrigoni Savile Row paper with a cutout in shape of Sherlock’s pipe on the front cover, featuring a tartan fabric below, while the title of the book is blocked on the spine in brown foil.

Once you open the book, you’ll be met by UV printed endpapers featuring a wallpaper motif inspired by the wallpapers in Sherlock’s living room. Inside of the book you can find twelve illustrations by Manuel Šumberac, who has also done all the artwork, including the drop caps, for this title. The illustrations for this edition are truly remarkable, something that we have never done before. Since this is a short story collection, it made no sense to look for key plot points; instead the idea was to boil down the whole story into a singular illustration, which offered a “blueprint” of the story expressed artistically. Each illustration contains the key elements of the story, which is intended to beckon the reader to return and give it another look to better understand the story.

As you go through the chapters, you’ll see there are beautiful themed drop caps designed for each story, as well as the unique title for each of them. Once you need a break from reading, you can use the bookmark shaped like a magnifying glass, but is fully functional as well, because it has a plastic lens with 3x magnification.

As previously mentioned, this edition is limited to 400 copies, with a few additional publisher’s copies for the key participants of the projects that will never go to sale, making this a true rarity.

Photography: Danijel Berković & Dino Šertović.

Production and Materials

This edition makes heavy use of Fedrigoni Savile Row paper, which seemed fitting considering the historical significance of London’s main tailor street.

It comes in a slipcase draped in Fedrigoni Savile Row Plain Brown paper with blind and gold blocking on the front.

The book is quarter-bound in premium beige book cloth and Fedrigoni Savile Row Brown paper with a cutout in shape of Sherlock’s pipe on the front cover, featuring a tartan pattern printed below. The title is blocked on the spine in brown foil.

Endpapers are also made on Fedrigoni Savile Row Plain Brown paper featuring a UV printed wallpaper pattern inspired by the one in Sherlock’s living room. The book is printed letterpress with our very own Heidelberg Cylinder SBG on Fedrigoni Savile Row White paper (140g) that boasts 60% ECF wood-free pulp, 20% cotton fibres and 20% textile fibres. All twelve illustrations featured inside are printed offset.

Finally, the book was smyth sewn, then glued afterwards to provide for maximum durability. For this title Baskerville typography seemed like the perfect choice.

The magnifying glass bookmark is produced by caching a plastic magnifying lens between two Fedrigoni Savile Row papers, creating a functional bookmark.

All of these details make this edition of Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of a Dozen Favourites truly essential.

Shipping

Since we put a lot of effort into creation of our books, we like to see them delivered safe and sound (and fast!) straight into your hands. That is why we ship with DHL Express, which means the books will be trackable at all times and they’ll arrive straight into your hands (unless you state otherwise). This also means they should arrive within 7-10 business days at the latest, but they’ll usually arrive within five business days, depending at what time of the day you made your order.

Please be aware that although books are not subject to customs fees in many countries, they might be in yours. This may mean they’ll be held at customs for inspection, delaying the delivery time, and you may be charged a customs fee or import tax or similar. Unfortunately, there is nothing we can do about customs clearance – customs rules of each country make the importer (the buyer—you!) responsible for these fees. Some of our customers have managed to reduce these fees by opting to do the import documentation themselves at the customs office instead of letting the courier (DHL) do it for them.