[Rarebooks] fa: TALES OF WONDER 1801 - M.G. "MONK" LEWIS - WALTER SCOTT &c - 1st Ed/2 vols. in 1

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, February 24. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching under the seller name arch_in_la.

http://tinyurl.com/adcbh8k

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
L.A.

Matthew Gregory Lewis, Walter Scott, etc: Tales of Wonder; Written and Collected by M. G. Lewis, Esq. M.P. Author of The Monk, Castle Specre, Love of Gain, &c. In Two Volumes. London: Printed by W. Bulmer and Co. Cleveland Row, for the author, 1801. FIRST EDITION. Two volumes bound in one; thick royal 8vo (26 cm) in recent half calf over marbled boards, gilt-lettered spine labels; [6], 482 pp.

Not only significant as a landmark of horror and imaginative literature, but also for the first appearances of four poems by Walter Scott: "Glenfinlas" (written in 1799 and described by Scott as his "first serious attempt in verse"), "The Eve of Saint John", "The Wild Huntsman" (revised and improved), and "Frederick and Alice." Also included are 32 poems by Matthew Lewis himself, as well as works by Robert Southey, Robert Burns, John Leyden, George Colman, and others. "The first known published and the single most important horror verse anthology in English… Tales of Wonder was a decisive, if not always admitted, influence on the Romantics and is the seminal horror poetry volume in English. In its day the lavish, high-priced set was jeered at as "Tales of Plunder"… Yet the very venom of the attacks - and of the scathing parodies — plus the many reprints and new editions, suggest that Tales of Wonder was a vital, popular collection" (Tymn, ed., Horror Literature).

Embossed blindstamp of the "American Congregational Association, Boston" to the title-page and one text leaf; bound without the second title-page; occasional bumps to the corners and edges of the text block; light spotting to the title-page and a few small spots elsewhere; otherwise very clean and sound in a fresh and striking modern binding.