THE ROSE AND THE KEY. [London]: Downey & Co., n.d. [1895]. Octavo, pp. [i-vii] viii [1] 2-432, original decorated dark green cloth, front and spine panels stamped in gold, publisher's monogram stamped in blind on rear panel. First one-volume edition. First published as a 36-part serial in ALL THE YEAR ROUND, 21 January 1871 to 23 September 1871, and first published as a book by Chapman and Hall in 1871. "One of the most interesting of Le Fanu's novels, THE ROSE AND THE KEY concerns Maud Vernon, whose mother commits her to an asylum when Maud is not mentally ill. A study of human avarice and terror, Maud becomes the victim of an alienist, Dr. Antomarchi ... The characterization of Dr. Antomarchi and the realistic and believable study of the asylum give a particular horror to the novel. Le Fanu may have been influenced by Wilkie Collin's THE WOMAN IN WHITE. However, Le Fanu creates his own genuine study of human weakness and cruelty." - Gary William Crawford. "There is much in the novel that recalls Charles Reade's treatment of a somewhat similar theme in HARD CASH, and it is hardly necessary to say that the most stirring episodes concern the awful experiences of Maud Vernon at Glarewoods ... Like a surgeon who discovers a curious beauty in some physical abnormality he is called upon to remove, Le Fanu seizes on these scenes of horror and no matter how his story may have dragged in the preceding chapters he warms to the occasion with a renewed zest. Every nerve must be thrilled, each harrowing circumstance must be related, and the episode is presented to the excited reader with a kind of cold frenzy." - Nelson Browne. Hubln (1994), p. 493. Early private owner's bookplate affixed to front paste-down. A hint of rubbing to cloth at spine ends and corner tips, mild bumps to upper corner tips, a bright, very good or better copy. Very scarce in this condition. (#156343).
Price: $750.00 save 20% $600.00
No statement of printing.