STORIES OF AMERICAN LIFE; BY AMERICAN WRITERS. London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, New Burlington Street, 1830. 12mo, three volumes: pp. [i-iii] iv-vii [viii] [1] 2-358 [359-360: ads]; [i-ii] [1] 2-342; [i-ii] [1] 2-336, nineteenth-century three-quarter black leather and marbled boards, spine panels richly tooled in gold, brown leather title pieces. First edition. The first anthology of American short fiction (excluding single author collections and literary annuals and gift books). Twenty-seven stories with American settings, anonymously contributed by many of the leading American short story writers of the period before the rise of Hawthorne and Poe, including James Hall, Catharine Maria Sedgwick, Godfrey Wallace, James Kirke Paulding, William Leete Stone and Nathaniel Parker Willis. There are also stories by John Neal, Gulian C. Verplanck, and William Cullen Bryant. Supernatural tales include "Pete Featherton," a supernatural tale by Hall, "The Ghost," a nautical ghost story by Paulding and "The Rife," a tale about an enchanted gun by Leggett. Miss Mitford, a popular writer of British regional fiction (OUR VILLAGE, 1824-1832), considered American "lighter" fiction to be superior to anything of the kind in Great Britain, and compiled this collection of American tales (largely selected from American periodicals and gift books) for the edification of her countrymen. A second three-volume collection of fiction by American writers, LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF AMERICAN LIFE, was compiled by Miss Mitford and published in 1832. "The story of Mitford's conversion from abhorrence to energetic endorsement of many American writers now regarded as among our best deserves a place in the history of the literary relationship of England and America ..." - John L. Idol, Jr., "Mary Russell Mitford: Champion of American Literature," Studies in the American Renaissance (1983), p. 313. Some rubbing to edges, a bit of scattered foxing to text block, a very good copy. Scarce in the trade; no copy at public auction since 1977 (Swann Galleries, hammer $90). (#137376).
Price: $1,500.00
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