MANY KINGDOMS. New York and London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1908. Octavo, pp. [1-8] [1-2] 3-11 [312] [note: first leaf is a blank], inserted frontispiece, original pictorial gray green cloth, front panel stamped in green, white and black, spine panel stamped in black. First edition. Eleven short stories, three with genre relevance. In "Varick's Lady o' Dreams" a young man has several visions over the years in which a woman appears, saying that she is a real person who is having the same vision; she cannot reveal her name or where she lives (her accent is foreign); in their final vision he kisses her, and she laments that he has spoiled everything and banished the visions forever; he spends the rest of his life wandering about Europe trying to find her. "The Exorcism of Lily Bel" presents the transition from fantasy to reality in more optimistic terms when the imaginary female playmate of a young boy is displaced by the arrival of a real female playmate. "Her Last Day" is about a young woman who is slipping in and out of longer and longer periods of madness. During a lucid interval she realizes she'll eventually wind up in an asylum. She escapes from her nurse, in a New York City hotel, and enjoys one last day of excitement and pleasure, with the help of a down-and-out young gentleman she meets in the park, before retuning to her hotel and jumping out the window to end her life. A notch about the usual commercial fiction of the day. Worth a look. Smith, American Fiction, 1901-1925 J-209. A fine copy. (#113106).
Price: $45.00
"Published October, 1908" on copyright page.