TWELVE COMPLETE STORIES. New York: J. S. Ogilvie & Company, n.d., [circa 1890]. Octavo, pp. [1-3] 4-171 [172: blank] [3] 4-173 [174: blank] [175-182: ads] [note: text complete despite gap in pagination], flyleaves at front and rear, original brown cloth, front and rear panels stamped in blind, spine panel stamped in gold, pale yellow coated endpapers. First enlarged (or combined) edition. The first half of this text (with seven stories) was published earlier as CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE AND OTHER STORIES (a twenty-cent paperback in the "The People's Library" series in 1885). Whether there was an earlier separate publication for the second half is unknown. No listings in OCLC or The American Catalogue correspond to a title with these five stories. They may have been printed expressly for this cloth edition -- a rare book with just two holdings in OCLC libraries, and no mention in The American Catalogue. Conway was a best-selling author in the mid-1880s and his work was extensively pirated in America with the same material being sliced up again and again in different combinations by different publishers. Of the twelve stories here, at least two have supernatural themes: "Our Last Walk" (a ghost story) and "The Daughter of the Stars" (an occult romance). Some of the others are crime and mystery stories. Not in Bleiler (1948; 1978), Day, Supplemental Checklist of Fantastic Literature, or Reginald (1979; 1992). Square of paper glued by previous owner to part of front paste-down (to cover a signature?). Bottom corners bumped, top corners rubbed, cloth at top of spine a little pulled, still a bright very good copy. (#128540).
Price: $350.00
No statement of printing.