[Rarebooks] fa: TALES OF TERROR 1808 - Gothic Parody w/ "Disgusting" Colored/Folding PLATES

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, auctions ending Sunday, March 26. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

http://tinyurl.com/n23cagd

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA

[Matthew Gregory Lewis (attributed to):] Tales of Terror; with An Introductory Dialogue. London: Printed for R. Faulder, J. Walker [et al], 1808. Second edition. Small 8vo (19.75 cm), untrimmed in modern calf and marbled boards, gilt-lettered morocco spine label; [4], 155, [1] pp.; extra engraved title-page with hand-colored vignette plus three hand-colored folding plates (complete). Summers, Gothic bibliography p.525; Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural, pp 264-266.

Second, slightly expanded, edition of this scarce and macabre collection of gothic parodies in verse often attributed to Matthew "Monk" Lewis, first published in 1801. Along with a gruesome retelling of Little Red-Riding-Hood (with a far from happy ending), the contents include The Wanderer of the Wold; The Scullion-Sprite or the Garret-Goblin; Albert of Werdendorff or the Midnight Embrace; Grim, King of the Ghosts, or the Dance of Death; The Grey Friar of Winton, and other suitably Gothicky titles. The frequent attribution to Lewis is now generally dismissed as false, Montague Summers writing that "the book is gruesome and in its illustrations even disgusting, and it seems impossible that Lewis could have had anything to do with it" (this seems self-evident to us, considering that one of the verses is in fact dedicated and "respectfully inscribed to M.G. Lewis, Esq., M.P…."). The work is more likely to have been a lively and rather malicious parody of Lewis's own Tales of Wonder. The plates have been attributed to Henry Bunbury.

Mild toning to the leaves, darker along the untrimmed edges, occasional small scattered spots; the first plate with a short closed tear to the top of the fold; otherwise quite clean and sound, firmly and attractively rebound.