L. W. Currey, Inc.

Irving, Washington. THE ALHAMBRA. By Geoffrey Crayon [pseudonym] ... In Two Volumes. London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, New Burlington Street, 1832. Octavo, two volumes: pp. [i-v] vi [vii] viii [1-3] 4-333 [334-336 blank][note: last leaf is a blank]; [i-viii] [1-3] 4-299 [300: printer's imprint] [301-304: ads], original blue boards, brown paper shelf back, printed paper labels affixed to spine panels, all edges untrimmed. First edition. The last of Irving's collections of sketches and stories published under his pen name Geoffrey Crayon includes nine supernatural tales: "Legend of the Arabian Astrologer," "Legend of Prince Ahmed Al Kamel; or, The Pilgrim of Love," "Legend of the Moor's Legacy," "Governor Manco and the Soldier," "Legend of the Two Discreet Statues," "The Legend of the Enchanted Soldier," "The Adventure of the Mason" (marginal), "Legend of the Rose of the Alhambra," and "Legend of Don Munio Sancho de Hinojosa." This Colburn and Bentley edition precedes the first U.S. edition published in Philadelphia by Carey and Lea in 1832. "The father of the U.S. short story and one of the first U.S. professional writers, Irving is an important link in the transfer of the stories of German Romanticism to U.S. soil ... Irving's work laid the foundation for the writings of William Austin, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe and others ..." - Clute and Grant (eds), The Encyclopedia of Fantasy (1997), p. 505. Irving traveled in Spain 1826 to 1829. His Spanish residence resulted in a profound interest in Moorish culture, the first fruit of which was THE ALHAMBRA (1832), a volume of stories and sketches based on Spanish legends. The tales "are less satirical than his early adaptations, but their muted melancholy makes them more strongly romantic" (ibid., p. 505). Barron (ed), Fantasy Literature 2-92. Bleiler, The Guide to Supernatural Fiction 886. Bleiler (ed), Supernatural Fiction Writers: Fantasy and Horror, pp. 689-90. Sullivan (ed), The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural, pp. 224-5. Survey of Modern Fantastic Literature IV, pp. 1554-62. Tymn (ed), Horror Literature 2-49. Bleiler (1978), p. 107. Not in Reginald (1979; 1992). Langfeld and Blackburn, p. 32. BAL 10135. See Wright (I) 1373. Old repair to outer front joint and upper spine end of volume one, hairline crack along outer rear joint repaired, a bit of wear and cracking along outer front joint of volume two, mild wear at spine ends, corner tips bumped and worn, a very good copy with clean interior; largely unopened. A pretty nice copy and quite uncommon in the publisher's binding. Laid in is an old Charles Sessler catalogue description calling this "a perfect copy ... in splendid condition. Very rare in this state." (#134900).

Price: $2,500.00