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Expertly furbished (joints repaired, tips consolidated, gilt retouched), faint foxing to first and last few leaves, short closed tear to margin of p. 199, not affecting text. A very good copy in a contemporary binding. ¶ Bleiler, Supernatural Fiction 1651; Hazen 17; Lowndes IV, 2820; Printing and the Mind of Man 211; Rothschild 2491. Thomas Gray to Horace Walpole, 30 December 1764, Thomas Gray Archive, available online. £17,500 [152506] 174 WESTON, Jessie L. From Ritual to Romance. Cambridge: at The University Press, 1920 First edition of this influential study of the Grail myth, read with zeal by modernist authors such as T. S. Eliot and Mary Butts and folkloric scholars alike. Weston was involved in a long-running debate regarding the origin of Arthurian tales, specifically the quest for the Holy Grail. The second chapter “The Task of the Hero” focuses on the figure of the Fisher King presiding over a “Waste Land”, and directly influenced Eliot while writing his modernist masterpiece. Octavo. Original pale orange cloth-backed blue paper boards, spine lettered in blue, edges untrimmed. Spine browned, lettering a little rubbed, touch of wear to tips, top edge dust toned, a couple of faint marks to boards, faint offsetting to endpapers, occasional faint pencil mark to margins, annotation on p. 161 and p. 191 “summary of argument”; a very good copy. ¶ Muriel Whitaker, “The Arthurian Art of David Jones”, in Arthuriana , 1997. £975 [154732]
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173 WALPOLE, Horace. The Castle of Otranto. London: Thomas Lownds, 1765 [but 1764] “Heaven mocks the short-sighted views of man” First edition, the Newton copy, of this mock tale of medieval horror which initiated the vogue for Gothic romances, rare in contemporary binding. Printed on Christmas Eve 1764 in a small edition of 500 copies on fine laid paper, the first edition has long been a choice item for collectors. The first edition was disguised as the translation, by one “William Marshal, Gent”, of an Italian work discovered in the library of an old Roman Catholic family in the north of England, but the reception was so favourable that within six months of publication Walpole issued a second edition in which his
authorship was revealed. The poet Thomas Gray wrote to Walpole that the novel made “some of us cry a little, and all in general afraid to go to bed o’nights” (Gray). “Impressive theatrical effects included a gigantic heavenly helmet with magical powers, a bleeding statue, a sword that could only be borne by fifty men, an anchorite whose flesh had melted away to leave only an animated skeleton, and a portrait that strode out of its frame. The fascination with the fantastic was the same that created Strawberry Hill, but unrestrained by the requirements of bricks and mortar. It caught a tide of interest in exotic evocations of ancient and medieval cultures” ( ODNB ). Octavo (169 × 107 mm). Contemporary calf, titles to red morocco label to spine, raised bands and compartments tooled in gilt, marbled endpapers, board edges tooled in gilt. With blue cloth chemise and quarter morocco slipcase. Bookplates of Thomas Philip, Earl de Gray (1781–1859), and American bibliophile Alfred Edward Newton (1864–1940).
All items are fully described and photographed at peterharrington.co.uk
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