(#152359) FALKLAND AND ZICCI. Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton.

FALKLAND AND ZICCI. London: George Routledge and Sons, The Broadway, Ludgate; New York: 416 Broome Street, 1875. Octavo, pp. [i-v] vi [7] 8-245 [246: blank] [247-256: publisher's ads], inserted frontispiece (portrait of the author), original dark green cloth, front panel stamped in gold and blind, spine panel stamped in gold, rear panel stamped in blind, top and bottom edges untrimmed. First edition of ZICCI. The first book publication of ZICCI, being volume nine of the Knebworth Edition of Bulwer-Lytton's collected works. This volume reprints two unrelated short novels. FALKLAND, his first published novel (1827), though reprinted numerous times later in other countries, had long been out of print in England because the author disliked it. It was one of the bitter fruits of his marrying Rosina Wheeler, an act that got him disinherited by his family, thus forcing the formerly precocious (and rather precious) young author to write in a commercial vein in order to make a living. It was not well-received at the time by the public, though he scored a big hit with his next novel, PELHAM. ZICCI began to appear in periodical form in 1841 but was never finished. Instead, it was extensively re-written and became the first part of ZANONI (1842), the first of his novel-length treatments of the occult, about a brotherhood of immortals with supernatural powers. The eponymous magician hero of ZICCI finds his love of magic defeated by the magic of love in the form of the beautiful singer Isabel di Pisani. "A curious work, partly in the hyperbolic romantic style of the day, partly in the Silver Fork manner, partly Gothic. Zicci is obviously a London Corinthian buck, with all the poses and pretensions of the species ... Strangely enough, the flippant boulevardism of ZICCI is occasionally more effective than the pretentiousness of ZANONI." - Bleiler, The Guide to Supernatural Fiction 303 and 304. A bright, nearly fine copy. (#152359).

Price: $150.00

Printing identification statement for this book:
No statement of printing.