THE BLACK OPAL. New York: D. Appleton & Company, 1918. Octavo, pp. [i-v] vi-ix [x] 1-320 [321] [322: blank], publisher's purple boards with burgundy shelf back, front and spine panels stamped in cream. First U.S. edition, first printing. "This is a story of a woman's life, her unhappy start -- consequent downfall -- and final redemption. But the Black Opal is the center of the plot, and the solution of its mysterious theft makes the story" (jacket blurb). THE BLACK OPAL, Tuttiett's last novel, was published in England under the title THE DIAMOND PENDANT. It is a melodramatic romance novel set immediately before the First World War about a governess blackmailed into becoming a jewel thief. Mary Gleed Tuttiett (1847-1923), British author, born on the Isle of Wight, whose first novel, THE SILENCE OF DEAN MAITLAND (1886), about a young curate who seduces a girl, commits manslaughter and lets another go to prison for his crime, created quite a stir. The author remained single and showed feminist leanings in her work. Blain, Grundy and Clements, The Feminist Companion to Literature in English, p. 455. Top edge of pages dusty, else a fine copy in very good pictorial dust jacket priced $1.50 on the spine panel with just a touch of wear along the top and bottom edges. A lovely copy. (#177642).
Price: $450.00
No statement of printing.