Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
The Innocence of Father Brown. G.K. Chesterton. Cassell & Co., London, 1911.
Price: US$425.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: First Edition/First Printing. Hardcover. very good red cloth book, stamped in gold has a slight lean, markings to the front board and front hinge loose. Free of any internal markings. First Father Brown book.
Seller: MDS BOOKS, Mississauga, ON, Canada
Chesterton, G.K.. The Innocence of Father Brown. Cassell, London, 1911.
Price: US$450.00 + shipping
Description: Sullivan #24. 5,000 copies. The first Father Brown book in first edition. Original red cloth lettered in gilt. 8 illustrations complete and clean. Patchy fading to rear cover. Small amount of insect tracking affecting gutter of front free endpaper and top of front pastdown. Other than these minor flaws a clean, bright copy of this scarce Queen's Quorum title.
Seller: Dr Jeremy Parrott, London, United Kingdom
Chesterton, G K. The Innocence of Father Brown. London Cassell 1911, 1911.
Price: US$470.22 + shipping
Description: First edition, first printing. Published by Cassell in London, 1911. This is a near fine copy. The deep red buckram is slightly blemished in places, notably at the spine and front panel. The gilt titling is bright and clean throughout. There is a small nick to the bottom of the spine and bumping at the spine tips. There is one small nick to the front hinge. The internals are mostly clean, though with some very slight foxing to the prelims. The frontispiece is with the tissue guard. The text blocks are slightly toned. Overall, this is a near fine copy. Detective Father Brown busses his skills sparingly to unravel murders when others have tried and usually failed to come to the right conclusions.
Seller: John Atkinson Books ABA ILAB PBFA, Harrogate, United Kingdom
CHESTERTON, G. K. (Gilbert Keith, 1874-1936). The Innocence of Father Brown. Cassell, London, 1911.
Price: US$499.00 + shipping
Description: First Printing of the first Father Brown book, a "cornerstone volume" (Pronzini & Muller ) and "one of the finest volumes of detective short stories ever written" (Queen), one of 5,000 copies. Crown 8vo (189 x 123mm): [8],336pp, with frontispiece and seven further plates tipped in. Publisher's red cloth, spine and upper cover lettered in gilt, older quarter-leather slipcase with chemise (faded at spine panel and edges). An excellent example, pages and plates clean and fresh (but fly-leaf offset), tightly bound with bright gilt. Sullivan A24. Queen (Detective Short Story), p. 21. Barzun and Taylor (Catalogue of Crime) 3677. Hubin I, p. 289. Queen's Quorum 47. Barzun and Taylor (Fifty Classics of Crime) 3. Pronzini & Muller, p. 133. ("It contains more classic short stories than almost any other mystery collection before or since. . . . if Father Brown lacks the colorful eccentricities of Sherlock Holmes, if his solutions are often more intuition than deduction, this book is still a masterpiece, the single volume by which G. K. Chesterton is most likely to be remembered."). A collection of ten short stories that appeared originally in two British periodicals, Storyteller and Cassell's Magazine ("The Blue Cross," "The Eye of Apollo," "The Flying Stars," "The Hammer of God," "The Honor of Israel Gow," "The Invisible Man," "The Queer Feet," "The Secret Garden," "The Sign of the Broken Sword," "The Sins of Prince Saradine," "The Three Tools of Death," and "The Wrong Shape"), initiating Chesterton's long-running series of detective stories. The unassuming, diminutive Roman Catholic priest makes his first appearance in "The Blue Cross," beside Valentin, "head of the Paris police and the most famous investigator of the world," and the reformed criminal M. Hercule Flambeau, the internationally infamous "colossus of crime." Father Brown, who ultimately featured in 53 short stories published between 1910 and 1936, was based on the real Father John O'Connor, who was involved in Chesterton's conversion to Catholicism in 1922, although similarities between the two were "internal" (a "clever mind, penetrating insight, a gift for careful observation, and a deep understanding of human evil" is how the Britannica puts it) rather than related to outward demeanor. N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional condition, carefully preserved in archival, removable mylar sleeves. All orders are packaged with care and posted promptly. Satisfaction guaranteed. (Fine Editions Ltd is a member of the Independent Online Booksellers Association, and we subscribe to its codes of ethics.).
Seller: Fine Editions Ltd, Lancaster, PA, U.S.A.
Price: US$500.00 + shipping
Description: Octavo, pp. [1-8] 1-335 [336], original red cloth, front panel stamped in gold and blind, spine panel stamped in gold. "A cornerstone volume (it) can lay claim to greatness on two counts: It introduced the priest detective whose adventures are still popular three-quarters of a century later, and it contains more classic short stories than almost any other mystery collection before or since." - Pronzini and Muller: 1001 Midnights. Queen's Quorum #47. A bright near fine copy. (6697)
Seller: John W. Knott, Jr, Bookseller, ABAA/ILAB, Laurel, MD, U.S.A.
Price: US$500.00 + shipping
Description: Octavo, pp. [1-8] 1-335 [336], eight inserted plates with illustrations by Sydney Seymour Lucas, original red cloth, front panel stamped in gold and blind, spine panel stamped in gold. First edition. Cornerstone collection of modern detective fiction that introduced the still-popular adventures of priest-detective Father Brown. The twelve stories "offer a nice feeling of life in Edwardian England, and if Father Brown lacks the colorful eccentricities of Sherlock Holmes, if his solutions are often more intuition than deduction, this book is still a masterpiece, the single volume by which G. K. Chesterton is most likely to be remembered." - Edward D. Hoch in Pronzini and Muller, 1001 Midnights, p. 133. "An important book: one of the finest volumes of detective short stories ever written." - Queen, The Detective Short Story, p. 21. Barzun and Taylor, A Catalogue of Crime 2405. Hubin (1994), p. 159. Queen's Quorum 47. A very good, bright copy. (#21912)
Seller: Currey, L.W. Inc. ABAA/ILAB, Elizabethtown, NY, U.S.A.
Chesterton, G K.. The Innocence of Father Brown.. London; Cassell and Company Ltd, 1911., 1911.
Price: US$515.31 + shipping
Description: FIRST EDITION. Octavo, pp [8], 336. 8 full-page plates by Sydney Seymour Lucas, including frontispiece with tissue guard. Publishers' red cloth with gilt titles to spine and upper board and ruled border in blind to upper board. Upper corner of upper board slightly bruised. Minor scattered light foxing, mainly to text-block edge and prelims. No annotation or inscriptions. A Very Good copy. The very first collection featuring popular detective Father Brown: 12 short stories. Scarce, particularly so in this condition.
Seller: Keel Row Bookshop Ltd - ABA, ILAB & PBFA, Whitley Bay, United Kingdom
Price: US$1024.17 + shipping
Description: [Crime Fiction] FIRST EDITION. Octavo (20 x 13cm), pp.[8] 336. Publisher's red cloth, with gilt titles to spine and upper cover. Contents clean, discreet bookseller ticket to rear pastedown, hand-coloured and illuminated bookplate of renowned bibliophile Stanley Crowe, gift inscription to reverse side of frontispiece, cloth bright and fresh. A particularly crisp example of the first Father Brown collection. A Haycraft-Queen Cornerstone title; one of the most important books of crime-detective-mystery stories. 'The miracle book of 1911 introduced Father Brown to an eternally grateful public. one of the three greatest detective characters ever invented (along with Poe's Dupin and Doyle's Sherlock Holmes)'. Cooper & Pike; Detective Fiction p79-82, Eric Quayle; Detective Fiction, Ellery Queen; Queen's Quorum. Book Collector No.273, p34.
Seller: Adrian Harrington Ltd, PBFA, ABA, ILAB, Royal Tunbridge Wells, KENT, United Kingdom