MONTEZUMA'S CASTLE AND OTHER WEIRD TALES ... Author's Edition. New York: Ralph S. Mighill, 1899. Octavo, pp. [1-2] 3 [4] 5 [6-7] 8-233 [234-238: blank] [note: last two leaves are blanks], fly leaves at front and rear, nine inserted plates, original pictorial gray wrappers printed in black. First edition. Of two recorded imprints (priority, if any, undetermined) this copy has the New York imprint. Issued in both cloth and paper wrappers, this being one of the latter. Mixed collection of sixteen short stories, some with southwestern settings, by Charles Barney Cory (1857-1921), a Boston-born ornithologist who was curator of the Boston Society of Natural History until 1905. "Includes a cycle of fantastic 'tall tales' inspired by hallucinogenic Jou Jou powder; also several ghost stories set in the Southwest." - Robert Knowlton. Bleiler, The Guide to Supernatural Fiction 437. Clareson, Science Fiction in America, 1870s-1930s 196. Bleiler (1978), p. 50. Reginald 03457. Tuck (1974), p. 118 (calling the book "very scarce"). Wright (III) 1209. Much of the spine panel has perished, 18x35 mm chip from front cover near upper spine fold, tiny chips at corners of rear cover, tape ghosts near spine folds of front and rear covers, inked Vincent Starrett quotation on dedication page, a sound, good reading copy. An uncommon book, especially in paper wrappers. (#118746).
Price: $100.00
No statement of printing.