PHANTASMION, A FAIRY TALE ... With an Introductory Preface by Lord Coleridge, Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas. Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1874. Octavo, pp. [i-iii] iv-viii [ix-xi] xii-xvi [1] 2-348, flyleaves at front and rear, original decorated terra-cotta cloth, front and spine panels stamped in black and gold, brown coated endpapers. Third U.S. edition. First published as a limited edition of 250 copies in 1837 by William Pickering. This Roberts Brothers edition was printed from the plates of UK second edition published by Henry S. King & Co. in 1874 which includes an introductory preface by Sir John Duke Coleridge (1820-1894), lord chief justice of England, Samuel Taylor Coleridge's nephew and Sara Coleridge's cousin. A rare precursor of the journey-to-faeryland that has characterized the structure and content of the quest motif in nineteenth and twentieth century fantastic literature. The major literary effort of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's daughter, "... an important precursor of J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth fantasies. Besides the intricacies of plot, character, and genealogy, PHANTASMION has a theme in common with Tolkien's works: the virtues of pastoralism and the disruptive force of industrialism." - Survey of Modern Fantasy Literature III, pp. 1238-40. A remarkable tale, modeled on Edmund Spenser's THE FAERIE QUEEN (1590; 1596), the "first fairy tale novel written in English." - Clute and Grant (eds), The Encyclopedia of Fantasy, p. 210. Barron (ed), Fantasy Literature 2-28. Bleiler, The Guide to Supernatural Fiction 391. Locke, A Spectrum of Fantasy, p. 55. Bleiler (1978), p. 46. Reginald 03174. Spine lean, cloth lightly rubbed at spine panel ends and corner tips, a bright, nearly fine copy with tight inner hinges. A lovely copy. (#158406).
Price: $450.00
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