Poe, Edgar Allan
Tales of Mystery, Imagination, & Humour; and Poems
£693
Rare Books, Manuscripts, Maps & Photographs
Auction: 19 June 2024 from 10:00 BST
Description
London: Henry Vizetelly, 1852. [Bound with:] Tales of Mystery, Imagination, & Humour. Second Series. London: Clarke, & Beeton, & Co., c.1853. 2 volumes in 1, 16mo (16 x 9.6cm), contemporary half calf, xxiv 256, [2] 252 pp., wood-engraved frontispiece and vignette title-page to each volume, similar vignettes throughout the text, spine sunned, headcap a little worn, binding rubbed, spotting to endpapers and blanks and to frontispiece and title-page of volume 2, bound without advertisement leaf at rear of volume 2 [Sadleir 3659 I & IX]
Footnote
First UK and first illustrated edition. The work was published as part of the short-lived ‘Readable Books' series, initiated by Henry Vizetelly in 1852 with the first volume of Poe's Tales, and lasting only until the following year. Subsequent instalments in the series were published first with the imprint of Vizetelly and Clarke, and then Clarke, Beeton & Co. Copies of the Tales are known in which the first volume contains the updated imprint of Clarke, Beeton & Co; the first volume in this copy is a tenth thousand but retains the original Henry Vizetelly imprint. Michael Sadleir noted that ‘the series is predominantly non-fiction. Fiction is, however, well represented by two important collections of Poe’s Tales'.