A Book of Bargains.

O'SULLIVAN, Vincent (1896)

£620.00  [First Edition]

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Frontispiece and "Puck on Pegasus" title page device by Beardsley. First edition, first issue. 8vo, original red cloth, lettered in gilt. London: Leonard Smithers,

Beardsley and O'Sullivan's friendship suffered slightly in the production of this book, the frontispiece of which caused Beardsley some problems. At one stage he demanded that his name be removed from the title page (see Zatlin, Beardsley) but Smithers ignored him, and the good relations of author and artist resumed. Beardsley violated his normal claim of never reading the books he was illustrating, and said he was "much struck by O'Sullivan's stories, I believe they will be a success." In his memoir of Wilde, O'Sullivan refers to this title as a “book of very youthful stories written to burlesque the variety of Terror stories then somewhat in fashion” but the book crossed the blood-brain barrier between parody and art and launched O'Sullivan as a macabre fantasy author. George Locke in his Spectrum of Fantasy memorably says of the stories "some but not all genuine fantasy." Nelson, LS, 1896.1; Sims, A.2; Lasner, AB, 109. Spine just faded, but a very good copy indeed.

Stock Code: 237830

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