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The Library of Fiction, or Family Story-Teller (in 2 vols.)

The Library of Fiction, or Family Story-Teller (in 2 vols.) by [Dickens, Charles (contributor)]

4 to 7 days for delivery
Standard Shipping: $15.00
Details
$2,500.00
( US$)
Seller: Whitmore Rare Books
Title
The Library of Fiction, or Family Story-Teller (in 2 vols.)
Author
[Dickens, Charles (contributor)]
Seller
Whitmore Rare Books (United States)
Description
London: Chapman and Hall, 1837. First edition. First edition in book form, first issue, with title-page to Vol. I dated 1836. Two octavo volumes (8 1/8 x 5 1/8 inches; 206 x 130 mm.). [iii-v]vi[vii]viii, [1]2-384; [vi], 350. Twenty-eight engraved plates by various artists including Robert Seymour and Robert William Buss. Publisher's dark green bead-grain cloth over boards, covers with arabesque design stamped in blind, spines lettered in gilt, all edges uncut, coated yellow end-papers. Covers of volume I with some damp-staining, expertly rebacked with original spine laid down; covers of volume II with joints expertly repaired and end-papers renewed with matching paper. With the bookplate of Eric S. Quayle on front paste-down of volume I. Tipped in at the end is a mid-twentieth century typed booksellers description (G.F. Sims of Hurst, Reading, England) of the book. The plates and text quite clean and relatively free from the usual foxing. An excellent set of the scarce first issue, from the library of the celebrated collector and bibliographer, Eric Quayle. Housed in an early twentieth century olive green morocco over green cloth board slipcase with central divider. Two spines with five raised bands, elaborately tooled and lettered in gilt in compartments. "The peculiar purpose of the 'Library of Fiction,' is to put is readers in possession, at a moderate price, of a series of Original Tales and Sketches, all carefully selected from among a host of candidates; and many of them written by Authors of the very loftiest pretensions in the field of imaginative composition" (publisher's "Address," Volume I). Contains two early pieces by Dickens in Volume I, both attributed to "Boz" and printed in the first and second series, respectively, of Sketches by Boz: "The Tuggs's at Ramsgate," pages 1-18, with two plates engraved by Landells after Robert Seymour, the first illustrator of Pickwick; and "A Little Talk About Spring and Sweeps," pages 113-119, with one plate by J. Jackson after R.W. Buss, Pickwick's second illustrator. "Dickens' first article in the first number of The Library of Fiction, "The Tuggses at Ramsgate" (Vol. I, pp. 1-18) was published on the selfsame day as the first number of the Pickwick Papers: 31 March 1836. Like Pickwick, the story is set partly in and partly outside London, and involves common London types: the fatuous nouveau riche Tuggses, the mercenary Waterses, and various impertinent and whimsical carriage drivers and land." (Philip V. Allingham, Victorian Web). "Dickens' other article in the Library of Fiction, "A Little Talk About Spring and Sweeps," (Vol. I, pp. 113-119) was first published in May 1836. It sets out to depict the traditional spring celebrations in the streets that Boz remembers so well from his childhood. These festivities, in the shape of spontaneous street performances and merry dances of young sweeps, have by now deteriorated into a fake and shabby charade that has nothing authentic about it. Boz laments the fact that nowadays the dancers are no longer real child sweeps, but actors who produce a contrived and ungainly performance. Boz's description of the celebrations now and in the past is interrupted by a lengthy digression into the biographies and careers of certain young chimney sweeps, the account of whose mysterious original introduces an aura of imaginative speculation into the sketch" (Dickens and the Imagined Child). Originally issued in fourteen monthly parts from April 1836-May 1837, with two additional parts issued in June and July, 1837. Rare in the original cloth, neither Sadleir nor Wolff had examples in the cloth. Eckel, pp. 137-9. Gimbel E122.
A Treasury of Mark Twain (The Folio Society)

A Treasury of Mark Twain (The Folio Society) by Twain, Mark [Clemens, Samuel Langhorne]; Blount, Roy

5 to 14 days for delivery
Standard Shipping: $6.69
Details
$15.00
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Seller: Yesterday's Muse Books
Title
A Treasury of Mark Twain (The Folio Society)
Author
Twain, Mark [Clemens, Samuel Langhorne]; Blount, Roy
Seller
Yesterday's Muse Books (United States)
Condition
Near Fine
Description
London: The Folio Society, 1999. 3rd Printing. Hard Cover. Near Fine/Very Good. 8x5x1. Waters, Rod. 3rd printing (Ford-Smith, Folio 76 #977). Includes publisher's slipcase. Fine book in very good slipcase. A couple small spots and other tiny blemishes to slipcase. Binding tight and square, pages clean, bright, and unmarked. 1999 Hard Cover. 266 pp. Silver boards with black titles and decorations. Introduction by Roy Blount, Jr., frontispiece and illustrations by Rod Waters. A collection of Twain's shorter works, featuring essays, sketches, and short stories. Includes: Introduction; Prefatory; The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County; Concerning Chambermaids; Jim Baker's Blue Jay Yarn; Taming the Bicycle; Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses; Journalism in Tennessee; A Touching Story of George Washington's Boyhood; A Complaint About Correspondents; The Story of the Bad Little Boy Who Didn't Come to Grief; The Story o fthe Good Little Boy Who Did Not Prosper; The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg; General Washington's Negro Body-Servant; Burlesque Autobiography; Running for Governor; The Case of George Fisher; Curing a Cold; A Day's Work!; The Untertaker's Chat; An American in Europe; Guying the Guides; Ascending Mont Blanc; European Food; Back from 'Yurrup'; The £1,000,000 Bank Note; An Item Which the Editor Himself Could Not Understand; The Great Earthquake in San Francisco; Punch, Brothers, Punch; Post-Mortem Poetry; What Hank Said to Horace Greeley; About Magnanimous-Incident Literature; On the Decay of the Art of Lying; The Private History of a Campaign That Failed. In his time, Mark Twain was known variously as the American Rabelais, the American Cervantes, and the American Dickens, but none of these definitions do him justice; he was the one and only American Mark Twain, humorist par excellence. Our Treasury is a priceless collection of vintage Twain. In these stories, satires, travel pieces, speeches, letters and anecdotes, Twain pokes fun at himself and his fellow creatures in places as diverse as the Mississippi riverboats and the castles of Europe. Here are excerpts from longer works, like Tom Sawyer whitewashing his fence, as well as a host of less well-known though equally funny pieces, like Concerning Chambermaids', 'Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offences' and the delightfully self-mocking 'An Item Which the Editor Himself Could Not Understand'. Twain also enjoyed ethical dilemmas. In 'The £1,000,000 Bank Note', a penniless American in London receives an eccentric gift with a sting in the tail; in 'The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg', an honest town is seduced by the arrival of a mysterious sack of gold. But in the end, 'It is an honest town once more, and the man will have to rise early that catches it napping again.' This ending, like all the writings gathered here, sums up Mark Twain's uniquely irresistible combination of innocent, homespun wisdom and wickedly dry wit.

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