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First edition. Hard cover, 8vo, in publisher's red cloth boards, with gold lettering to spine. Includes eight full-page plates. COLLATION: x [2], 249, [2] pp. CONDITION: Very Good. Boards sunned in places. Light bumps to corners. Dust jacket not price-clipped, but heavily chipped at edges, and dust-soiled. Now protected in mylar. ** "The Canning Wonder" is a departure from Machen's usual gothic and literary essay genres, and instead concerns itself with a true crime eighteenth century mystery. Elizabeth Canning, a London maidservant disappeared for a almost a month in 1753, claiming to have been abducted and kept prisoner in an attic. She was found to have fabricated the story, and was tried and convicted for perjury. It was a famous case in its time, with people taking strong positions for, or against, Canning. The novelist Henry Fielding (1707-1754) was also a magistrate at the time of this incident, and became involved in the case. It also inspired the 1948 novel "The Franchise Affair", by the Scottish author, Josephine Tey. ** REFS: Goldstone & Sweetser (1973) 33a, p. 53. Scarce in dust jacket.
Ref: AMACH 9344
$245.00 $195.00