(#156925) THE SKETCH BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT. [pseudonym]. No. I [through] No. VII. Washington Irving.
THE SKETCH BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT. [pseudonym]. No. I [through] No. VII.

THE SKETCH BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT. [pseudonym]. No. I [through] No. VII. New York: Printed by C. S. Van Winkle, 101 Greenwich Street, 1819-1820. Small quarto, seven parts: pp. [i-iii] iv [5] 6-94; [97-101] 102-169 [170: blank]; [171-175] 176-242; [243-247] 248-301 [302: blank] [i-ii] [303] 304-335 [336: blank]; [337-341] 342-443 [444: blank]; [1-5] 6-120; [1-5] 6-123 [124: blank], each part uniformly bound in late nineteenth century three-quarter green crushed levant and marbled boards, spine panels lettered and tooled in gold, front and rear panels ruled in gold, a.e.g., marbled endpapers. First edition. A complete set of the seven parts, all first printings, bound without the original wrappers. The final blanks of parts 1 and 2 were not retained, but otherwise all the parts are complete as issued, and part 2 has the notice of regarding unauthorized reprinting inserted in some copies. Part 3 has "ont" on page 240, line 12 (Blanck's state A, no priority, if any, established). This set has been enhanced by the addition of seven nineteenth-century engraved portraits of Irving used as a frontispiece (with tissue guard) for each volume. Irving's first major work of fiction, including "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," his two most famous stories, as well as "The Spectre Bridegroom," a fine mock Gothic terror tale. "The father of the American short story and one of the first American professional writers, Irving is an important link in the transfer of the stories of German Romanticism to American 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. "Not only in the creation of the short story was Irving a pioneer. His work marks a progress in the American romance, so great as to be not merely a development, but a new species. The inconsistencies, the incongruities of which even [Charles Brockden] Brown was guilty, give place to a completeness of structure and a professional surety of touch. Irving's romances, even when we know, though constant rereading, just what is to happen, charm us by the grace of their form and the solvent of a humor which is his alone." - Quinn, American Fiction, p. 43. Barron (ed), Horror Literature 1-46. Bleiler, The Guide to Supernatural Fiction 884. Bleiler (ed), Supernatural Fiction Writers: Fantasy and Horror, pp. 686-88. Sullivan (ed), The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural, pp. 224-25. Tymn (ed), Horror Literature 1-181 and 2-51. Bleiler (1978), p. 107. Not in Reginald (1979; 1992). BAL 10106. Wright (I) 1430. Grolier 100: 31. Langfeld and Blackburn, pp. 15-22. Petter, The Early American Novel, pp. 122-26, especially p. 126. Some uniform tanning to the leather, but a lovely copy overall. First printing parts are uncommon (the first part in first printing is rare), mixed printings and editions are the norm, and copies in original wrappers in the trade nowadays are virtually nonexistent. A very desirable copy of a seminal American short story collection. Enclosed in a lovely custom quarter leather clamshell box with each volume protected in a cloth folder.(#156925).

Price: $12,500.00

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