THE SHIP OF ISHTAR. New York, London: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1926. Octavo, pp. [1-2] [i-iv] v-vi 1 [2] 3-326 [327-328: blank] [note: final leaf is a blank], original red-brown cloth, front and spine panels stamped in yellow. First edition. The dedication copy of Merritt's second book, with a full-page signed inscription by Merritt to S. S. Carvalho on the dedication page: "Dear Mr. Carvalho, / I hope that you / will like this as much / as you did the 'Moon Pool'. / Part of it, anyway -- like / the chapters on the / 'Lord of the Two / Deaths' and 'The / Gods & Man's / Desire'. I tried / to re-capture something / of the old Chinese [indecipherable word] / makers here & there -- in / words. Wonder if I / did? / Yours / A. Merritt." Although Wentz notes "several printings" and G. Gordon Dewey in FANTASY ADVERTISER, December 1948 notes five "printings," there was but a single printing. "... Putnam had been unable to sell a pitifully small edition of a thousand copies of THE SHIP OF ISHTAR in book form and the sheets for the last three hundred copies were finally purchased by Munsey, and were bound and distributed to readers of ARGOSY-ALL-STORY Magazine." - Sam Moskowitz, Explorers of the Infinite (Cleveland: World, 1963), p. 203. This book is found in numerous variant bindings, no priority established, this copy bound in red-brown mesh weave cloth with yellow stamping and top edge not stained. "... the most fully realized of all his fantasies." - Cawthorn and Moorcock, Fantasy: The 100 Best Books 36. "The most romantic of Merritt's works. Very uneven as a novel. Sometimes fascinating, sometimes dull; pretentious, yet with a knowing wink of humor now and then; finely imagined, if not always executed." - Bleiler, The Guide to Supernatural Fiction 1157. Anatomy of Wonder (1976) 3-42. Ashley, Who's Who in Horror and Fantasy Fiction, pp. 130-31. Barron (ed), Fantasy Literature 3-246. Bleiler (ed), Supernatural Fiction Writers: Fantasy and Horror, pp. 838-39. Clareson, Science Fiction in America, 1870s-1930s 559. Locke, A Spectrum of Fantasy, p. 156. Schlobin, The Literature of Fantasy 746. Survey of Modern Fantasy Literature III, pp. 1407-11. Tymn (ed), Fantasy Literature, p. 140. In 333. Bleiler (1978), p. 138. Reginald 10070. Currey, p. 365 (binding C). Much of the orange enamel lettering on spine and front panels is perished, more so from spine panel, several scuffs and scratches to cloth on rear cover, some scattered staining to several leaves of text, and margins of some other leaves, a good copy in very good pictorial dust jacket with shelf wear at spine ends and corner tips, 33 mm closed tear at upper rear spine fold with small internal tape ghost, and vertical crease along center of spine panel. A fine association copy of a major twentieth-century American fantasy. (#103570).
Price: $3,500.00
No statement of printing on copyright page.