CURIOS: SOME STRANGE ADVENTURES OF TWO BACHELORS ...
London: John Long, 1898. Octavo, pp. [i-v] vi [7] 8-287 [288: blank] + eight-page publisher's catalogue dated "October 1898" inserted at rear, title page printed in orange and black, original pictorial dark gray cloth, front panel stamped in light gray, black, red and gold, spine panel stamped in gold, publisher's monogram stamped in blind on rear cover, all edges untrimmed. First edition. Linked series of seven tales featuring two curio hunters, mostly criminous encounters excepting the sixth episode, "The Adventure of Lady Wishaw's Hand," in which a malevolent medieval relic (the severed hand of an ancestor) continues to punish those family members who do not honor an ancestral feud. The first episode, "The Adventure of the Pipe," is a rationalized supernatural story about a "haunted" meerschaum pipe with a loathsome tentacled creature carved on the bowl that moves when the pipe is smoked. "... there was a lot more to Marsh than THE BEETLE ... Marsh is an unfairly neglected writer who will repay the effort of getting his books." - Sullivan (ed), The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural, p. 283. Bleiler, The Guide to the Supernatural Fiction 1112. Wilson, Shadows in the Attic, p. 352. Hubin (1994), p. 553. Wolff 4563. Front and rear hinges repaired, neat inked name and small bookseller label to front paste down, take paper tanned, light wear to corner tips and spine ends, rubs to outer spine joints, vertical crease to cloth of spine and some darkening of spine. A very good copy with a bright front cover. A respectable copy of an uncommon book. (24981). Item #24981
Price: $850.00