CLARKE, Harry POE, Edgar Allan Tales of Mystery and Imagination by Edgar Allan Poe 1928
Edgar Allan Poe s Tales of Mystery and Imagination Illustrated by Harry Clarke[CLARKE, Harry, illustrator]. POE, Edgar Allan. Tales of Mystery and Imagination. Illustrated by Harry Clarke. London: George G. Harrap & Co., [1928].Reprint of the second trade edition (the first with color plates). Quarto (10 9/16 x 8 inches; 269 x 203 mm.). 381, [2], [1, blank] pp. Eight color plates mounted on gray paper (including frontispiece), twenty-four black and white plates, and twenty-seven decorative tail-pieces and vignettes.Original black cloth with pictorial paper label printed in gold and black on front cover. Spine pictorially stamped and lettered in gilt. Top edge gilt. Minor wear to extremities. Some very light foxing to endpapers. A very good copy.Tales of Mystery and Imagination was first published in 1919 with twenty-four black and white plates. It was republished in 1923 with all but one of the black and white plates in the 1919 edition (The Colloquy of Monos and Una illustration (facing p. 240) replaced by an extra Pit and the Pendulum illustration (facing p. 252)), three extra tail-pieces (twenty-seven in all, the ten basic designs being repeated a number of times), and eight additional color plates tipped in on gray card (cf. Bowe). Mr. Harry Clarke has allowed himself full liberty in attempting to express the features of Poe s Tales which differentiate them from others. In his drawings, the morbid imaginings of Poe s extraordinary genius are depicted without any attempt to soften their weird effects upon most readers. At the same time the drawings are extremely beautiful. They exhibit a wealth of delicate and intricate design such as few other, if any, living artists can command (Harrap s advertising feature in the Bookman s Christmas Supplement, quoted in Bowe, p. 52).See Bowe, pp. 149-150. Steenson A2.j.
$US450
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