Tales of Mystery and Imagination, by Edgar Allan Poe. Illustrated by Arthur Rackham.

POE, Edgar Allan (1809-1849), [RACKHAM, Arthur, illustrator].

London: George G. Harrap & Co., Ltd., 1935. [Illustrated Strange Tales] SIGNED LIMITED EDITION. Large octavo (28 x 21cm), pp.[2] 318 [2]. With 12 fine colour plates, each with a captioned tissue guard, and 17 line drawings, all by Rackham. Number 329 of 460 copies thus, SIGNED by the illustrator in black ink to the limitation page. Publisher's deluxe full vegetable parchment, with gilt titles and decoration to spine and upper. Top edge gilt; others untrimmed, with black and white illustrated endpapers. With the original publisher's card slipcase, with a printed paper title label to spine. Internally crisp and clean. Bright binding shows minimal spotting, and a hint of toning to spine. Moderate general wear and toning to slipcase. Near fine. A seminal figure in the development of science fiction and the detective story, Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) exerted a great influence on Dostoyevsky, Conan Doyle, Verne, and Baudelaire. This collection of Poe's best stories contains all the terrifying and bewildering tales that characterise his work, as well as the Gothic horror of 'The Pit and the Pendulum', together with all three of the landmark cases featuring his ground-breaking detective Auguste Dupin. The history of the detective story begins with the publication of 'The Murders In the Rue Morgue' (Matthews). Item #71752

Price: £2,750.00