With Four Illustrations By The Late James McBryde
Ghost-Stories of an Antiquary With Four Illustrations By The Late James McBryde
Edward Arnold, 1904.
First edition. Publisher's brown buckram, lettered in black with red rules. Yapp edges. 16pp publisher's adverts to rear, dated November 1904. A fine copy, the buckram uncommonly clean and free from wear. Internally fresh. An exceptional example of a book very difficult to obtain in fine condition.
The author's first collection of ghost stories, which quickly became a seminal work of the genre.
"There is no question of apprenticeship here; the first story, 'Canon Alberic's Scrap Book', contains the donnish tone, the massing of verisimilitudinous detail (often of a tongue-in-cheek scholarly sort), and the using of that detail to intensify the terror when it comes that are his trademarks." (ODNB)
James's stories originated as winter night's amusements for his fellow dons at King's College, Cambridge. They drew upon his work as a medievalist scholar and his powerful imagination and although James's structure was distinctly traditional, his refined yet subtly affecting style has come to be regarded as the best most influential of its type.
The unusual binding of this work, a coarse hessian cloth with oversized 'yapp' edges, has proved very susceptible to wear and soiling and has seen a brisk rate of attrition over the years. Fine copies are now very rare.
Stock ID: 41556
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