Marrin's Bookshop

Synopsis

By thomas jefferson hogg. with an introduction by sidney scott. engravings by douglas percy bliss.

Item Description

8fo. 9 x 5.5 inches. 155 + [1] pp. Bound in dark green cloth, gilt, over marbled boards, in unclipped pictorial dust wrapper, which has edge wear and chips at head and tail of spine. Extremities, including corners and head and tail of spine a little worn, fly leaves browned and traces of foxing; otherwise a very good copy. Illustrated by 8 wood engraved plates, including frontispiece. Romantic novel by Thomas Jefferson Hogg (1792-1862), barrister and writer, friend of Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, and friend and biographer of Shelley, who in his original review (included in this edition) described the book as a 'strange and powerful performance... affording inexhaustible food for wonder and delight.' The hero travels from Europe to Constantinople, where, after an Arabian Nights' adventure in the Seraglio, he buys a Circassian slave to whom he becomes passionately devoted: after her tragic death he returns to Germany where he is initiated into the mysteries of the Eleutheri: finally he comes to England, falls in love, and marries. Illustrated by the wood engravings of Scottish artist, Douglas Percy Bliss (1900-84) (Selborne, British Wood-Engraved Book Illustration, p 270-275). An early publication of The Folio Society.