A BELEAGUERED CITY BEING A NARRATIVE OF CERTAIN RECENT EVENTS IN THE CITY OF SEMUR, IN THE DEPARTMENT OF THE HAUTE BOURGOGNE: A STORY OF THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. London: Macmillan and Co., 1880 [i.e. 1879]. Octavo, pp. [i-vii] viii [1] 2-267 [268: blank] [269-272: ads] + 40-page publisher's catalogue dated "December 1879" inserted at rear, publisher's decorated gray cloth, front and spine panels stamped in black and gold, rear panel stamped in blind, top edge untrimmed, all edges plain, black coated endpapers. First edition. "... the most completely sustained of all her longer tales, A BELEAGUERED CITY stands at the peak of Oliphant's art. Written fifteen years after the shock of her daughter's death, it underscores the obsessive concerns of her supernatural fiction, almost all of which presents in dramatic form the insistent hope and prayer that beyond this life there is a territory of the Unseen, where the Dead are enabled to work out their ultimate Christianized salvation, and these Dead continue to care for us who remain here in the Seen, though they may be able to communicate only with innocents and children." - Bleiler (ed), Supernatural Fiction Writers: Fantasy and Horror, pp. 263-4. Wilson, Shadows in the Attic, p. 395. Bleiler (1978), p. 150 (citing a 1879 George Munro piracy). Reginald 10964. 1881 gift inscription at the top right corner of the half title page. Spine slant, cloth lightly worn at spine ends and corners, partial hairline crack along inner front hinge which is still holding tight, a very good copy. A nice copy of an important, very scarce book. (#172270).
Price: $1,000.00
No statement of printing.