Halloween’s coming soon, and book collectors may be stocking up their libraries of Stephen King, Anne Rice, and Ray Bradbury books. Our stores do see first editions, sometimes signed, by these masters of the macabre, but it isn’t often that we see a 100-plus-year-old edition from the Father of Fright himself, Edgar Allan Poe.
But one such ten-volume set did find its way to one of our stores in Milwaukee, Wisconsin:
The Works of Edgar Allan Poe
G.P. Putnam’s Sons, The Knickerbocker Press, 1902
10-volume, leather-bound Tamerlane Edition, limited to 300 sets, of which this is #19. Volume 5 has been expertly repaired. All other volumes are in Very Good condition. Illustrations and woodcuts are stunning, on Ruisdael handmade paper.
Rarely-Known Trivia
Poetry from beyond the grave—Poet and medium Lizzie Doten claimed that some of the poems that appeared in her 1863 book Poems of the Inner Life were “received” from the ghost of Poe, who died in 1849.
Favorite Son—Several cities want to claim Poe, including Boston, where he was born, and Baltimore (home of The Ravens), where he died, and Philadelphia and Richmond, where he spent some time in between.
Tamerlane Illustrator—This edition of Poe’s works was illustrated by Canadian artist Frederick Simpson Coburn, who in 1933 at the age of 62 stopped painting because of his wife’s death. But then he met a dancer and painted her dancing for the next 27 years—and learned to dance.
If you’re interested in buying this rarest of rare collectible, visit HPB.com/buyguy and contact me, the HPB Buy Guy.
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