IRAS: A MYSTERY. Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1896. Octavo, pp. [i-iv] [1] 2-281 [282: printer's imprint] [283: ad] [284: blank] + [32]-page publisher's catalogue dated "7/96" on page 32 inserted at rear, original decorated orange cloth, front and spine panels stamped in brown and black, top and fore edges untrimmed, bottom edge trimmed, brown coated endpapers. First edition. Novel of magic and witchcraft and the raising of the dead. Young Egyptian woman is revived in England after seven centuries in a state of suspended animation in a priest's tomb at Luxor. "A novel at the threshold of science fiction ... a strange blending of psychology and Egyptology, showing the completeness with which authors combined the supernatural and scientific during the 1890s." - Clareson, The Emergence of American Science Fiction: 1880-1915, pp. 93-4. "Sensational romance of revivification; ancient Egyptian woman marries modern English savant, only to revert under magician's curse to a mummy. A familiar plot, no better or worse in the telling than one might expect. Under her actual name, Mrs. H. D. Everett the author of notoriously scarce collection THE DEATH MASK (1920), cited by Lovecraft in his Supernatural Horror in Literature." - Robert Knowlton. Ashley, Who's Who in Horror and Fantasy Fiction, p. 76. Bleiler, The Guide to Supernatural Fiction 547. Clareson, Science Fiction in America, 1870s-1930s 259. Clute and Grant (eds), The Encyclopedia of Fantasy, p. 286. Locke, A Spectrum of Fantasy, p. 71. Bleiler (1978), p. 63. Reginald 04973. Mild rubbing to spine ends and corner tips, several light spots to cloth, a very good copy. A lovely copy of a very scarce edition of this novel. (#170561).
Price: $1,000.00
No statement of printing.