TALES OF MYSTERY AND IMAGINATION
Book Details + Condition: J.B. Lippincott (Philadelphia). First (US) Edition (2nd Printing), 1935 (no date provided). Hardcover with original dust jacket. Oversize 8" x 10" design. Deep red full-cloth boards, black title and design on front and on spine. Rare, original dust jacket in red, black and shadowy charcoal hues. Skeletal endpapers at front and back. 318 pages. Printed in Great Britain. Color frontispiece from The Telltale Heart. Profusely illustrated with the ethereal, terrifying imagery of Arthur Rackham. Includes 12 beautifully designed color plates with their original captioned tissue guards, and 17 chiaroscuro-like, full-page illustrations. Additional partial-page imagery, vignettes, and decoration by Rackham throughout. In very good condition, with only minor wear; light rubbing to corners; and a clean interior. Original dust jacket remains in very good condition and is protected with a mylar cover; it shows minor wear at corners and edges, and retains its original price.
"According to Rackham, the illustrations he provided for Poe's Tales of Mystery and Imagination, in 1935, frightened even him, and whilst this might only be expected when a fine illustrator meets a fine and frightening text. The best plates are indicative of a grandeur and vision one might not so far have perceived in Rackham Perhaps not a book or set of illustrations for a night's reading in bed, alone" (Gettings, Arthur Rackham). The tales in order include: The Imp of the Perverse; The Tell-Tale Heart; A Descent into the Maelstrom; The Cask of Amontillado; The Premature Burial; Hop-Frog; The Assignation; King Pest; The Pit and the Pendulum; The Masque of Red Death; The Man of the Crowd; The Fall of the House of Usher; The Oval Portrait; The Gold Bug; Ligeia; Eleonora; Berenice; Morella; Ms. Found In a Bottle; William Wilson; The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar; Metzengerstein; The Murders in the Rue Morgue; The Mystery of Marie Roget; and, The Purloined Letter.
