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First American Edition, in a single volume. (First serialized in England.) Hard cover, crown 8vo, in three quarter roan over marbled paper-covered boards, the spine with seven faux gilt compartments double ruled in gilt, with title and author name in the second. Trimmed edges sprinkled red. Former owner signature to ffep. in old ink " M.P. Poore, Indian Hill." frontispiece illustration titled "Is it a fatal case?" with loose (as issued) tissue guard, faces illustrated title page. 15 illustrations by George DuMaurier. [1]-8, 9-348 pp. Text in double column format. 15 CONDITION: Very Good Minus. Intermittent rubbing, or small scuffs, seen along joints tips and and marbled paper boards, however, this is more of a statement of appropriate age than damage. Narrow offset to ffep. from pastedown. Front hinge with one inch crack near foot, other hinge in order, and the whole remaining square and firm. Pages are moderately tanned, with occasional light soiling. **The work has been described as a "light novel" encompassing men from the legal, journalistic and religious professions, shown in hypocritical antipathy toward women in nineteenth-century England. The fictional females endure their reputations and marriage prospects being at the mercy of priggish, gossiping relations and romantic rivals. Begun in the Holburn Inns of Chambers, a young man, Adam Barton, mysteriously falls to his death from an upper story window. Will young Magdalen's secret shame doom her to a quick and unhappy union with a man she does not love? Will Edward Grafton, her intended bridegroom, the shifty curate to the Rector of Saxbury, be able to conceal his past assignations with the Widow Lucy Verner? Many secrets and a complex set of motives inform this twisty tale. ***British AUTHOR Charles William Shirley Brooks, (1816-1874) a London-born solicitor-turned-journalist and novelist, became the editor of Punch magazine in 1870 having contributed to that periodical for twenty years. He has been described as a" bohemian man of letters." (Sutherland). *** ILLUSTRATOR GEORGE DU MAURIER: artist and contributor to Punch, grandfather of novelist Daphne du Maurier. ***Provenance: INDIAN HILL FARM, Perley Poore/ Moseley family, West Newbury (near Newburyport), Massachusetts. . ***The PERLEY POORE family were early settlers of Old Newbury, to whom the town granted land along the Merrimack River purchased from one Tom Indian in 1650. M.P. Poore, or Mary Perley Poore, was the mother to her more famous son, Maj. Ben: Perley Poore (1820-1887). A civil war veteran, he worked as a journalist and foreign correspondent in the 1850's (similar to the Author of this work). Perley Poore eventually moved to Washington DC, where he was appointed Clerk of the Senate Printing Records, Editor of the Congressional Directory, and founder and first President of the Washington correspondents Gridiron Club. He was also author of notable political reminiscences of Jacksonian era politics, REF: See J.J. Currier, Ould Newbury Historical and Biographical Sketches,Boston, 1896. Sutherland, pp. 87-88.
Ref: FICT19 9263
$145.00