[Rarebooks] fa: ANN RADCLIFFE - MYSTERIES OF UDOLPHO 1794 - 1st Dublin Ed.

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, September 24. Images and more details can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

http://tinyurl.com/y9bwtjpz

Thanks,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA

Ann Radcliffe: The Mysteries of Udolpho, A Romance; Interspersed with Some Pieces of Poetry. By Ann Radcliffe, Author of the Romance of the Forest, etc. In three volumes. Dublin: Printed by Hillary and Barlow, for Messrs. P. Wogan, W. Jones, and H. Colbert [vol. II printed by Thomas Burnside; vol. III printed by Brett Smith], 1794. Three volumes, 12mo (16 cm), in full period calf; [2], 310 pp.; [2], 321, [1] pp.; 357, [1] pp. ESTC T114421.

The first Dublin edition (printed the same year as the first London edition) of Radcliffe's influential and wildly popular Gothic novel. Bindings rubbed, corners bumped, wear and cracking to the spines with loss of the labels and loss at the spine ends; cracking to upper joint of vol. II; vol. I with staining to the first 50+ leaves, lacking rear (blank) endpaper; several page-gatherings protruding from the text blocks, with some coming loose at the gutter but still secured; general toning to the contents, with occasional small soiling and small spots; occasional fraying and short tears to the page edges, longer tears  affecting text on two leaves of vol. I (pp. 305-308); early owner's signatures (Thomas McClintock). A rather uncommon edition: ESTC records copies in only nine U.S. institutions, five in the UK.

"In her hands the Gothic novels of her contemporaries...became wildly romantic, ancestors of a whole school, finding its culmination, perhaps, in America, in the supernatural and macabre stories of Poe... Her influence on both Byron and Scott was incalculable… Mrs. Radcliffe was a mistress of suspense, an ingenious weaver of intricate incident, and a real artist in the description of the wild scenery she loved… She introduced the 'poetical landscape' into the modern novel. She is practically unreadable today, but she was a seminal influence in English fiction" (Haycraft & Kunitz).