{"title":"Horror \u0026 Gothic","description":"","products":[{"product_id":"le-fanu-j-s-the-wyvern-mystery-a-novel-1889-4554","title":"The Wyvern Mystery. A Novel.","description":"\u003cbr\u003eLondon: Ward and Downey.  . 1889.\u003cbr\u003e\u003ch4 class=\"vrb_heading\"\u003eFrom the Libraries of Barry Humphries and Montague Summers.  \u003c\/h4\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan class=\"vrb_desc\"\u003eFirst single volume edition. 8vo. 191x125mm. pp. vii [ibl], 351 [1]. Six engraved plates by Brinsley Sheridan Le Fanu. Publisher's decorated cloth. Slight bumping and rubbing to corners and to head and foot of spine which is a little rubbed and darkened. Hinges weak and some minor marking but otherwise a very good copy of the first single volume edition of the novel initially issued in three volumes in 1869. The front pastedown has the striking St Jerome bookplate of Alphonsus Montague Summers designed by Eric Gill, together with the bookplate of the comedian Barry Humphries. It is unsurprising that the darkly gothic Le Fanu should have appealed to Summers who has been described as \"arguably the most seminal twentieth century purveyor of pop culture occultism.\" Nor that Summers, with his theatricality and taste for adopting multiple personalities, should have appealed to the flamboyant Humphries.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan class=\"vrb_note\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan class=\"vrb_prov\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan class=\"vrb_biblio\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e","brand":"LE FANU, J.S","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":55291527659897,"sku":"4554","price":3750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1484\/0910\/files\/4554.Lefanu_1.jpg?v=1749122187"},{"product_id":"webb-jane-mrs-jane-c-louden-the-mummy-a-tale-of-the-twenty-second-century-1827-4592","title":"The Mummy! A Tale of The Twenty-Second Century.","description":"\u003cbr\u003eLondon: Henry Colburn.. 1827.\u003cbr\u003e\u003ch4 class=\"vrb_heading\"\u003eScience fiction, feminism and reanimation. The first appearance of the Mummy. \u003c\/h4\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan class=\"vrb_desc\"\u003eFirst edition. Three volumes. 12mo. (185x113mm). pp. viii, 300; [ii], 348; [ii], 303 [1, publisher's adverts]. Bound without half-titles in volumes II and III (volume I was issued without a half-title). Tan half calf, marbled paper covered boards. Spine with green morocco label, lettered in gilt. Some repairs and strengthening to joints, head and foot of spines and corners. Slight scuffing to spines and rubbing to boards. Internally there is some cracking to the hinges of volume one with gathering H torn at the foot and a little loose. Some foxing and marking and a small black ink stain between pp 239-244 and 251-261 of volume III. Otherwise in very good condition throughout. Front pastedowns have the bookplate of Charles William Orde of Nunnykirk. He was a breeder of racehorses who ran his stud operation from the family house, Nunnykirk Hall. A nice copy of a rare book which has appeared in the auction records only five times in the last 100 years. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Mummy! \u003c\/em\u003erepresents the mingling of two cultural currents. The first is the early nineteenth obsession with ancient Egypt inspired by the work of French archaeologists and scholars following Napoleon's invasion in 1798. Of the many manifestations of contemporary Egyptomania, perhaps the most bizarre were the public \"mummy unwrappings\" which took place in 1821 in a Piccadilly theatre. The second is Mary Shelley's \u003cem\u003eFrankenstein, \u003c\/em\u003ethe begetter of reanimation novels. Jane Webb's (she became Louden on her marriage in 1831 to John, the botanist and early fellow of the Linnean Society) \u003cem\u003eThe Mummy!\u003c\/em\u003e tells of the  Pharoah Cheops brought back life in 2126. Unlike Frankenstein's monster, Cheops is essentially benign dispensing wise advice and benefactions along with observations along the lines of  \"Human nature is still the same even in this remote corner of the globe\", the banality of which evaporates into despair when one remembers that the person uttering these words is nearly 4700 years old so has, presumably, seen a thing or two. \u003cem\u003eThe Mummy!\u003c\/em\u003e is, however, more than just a work of Gothic  early science fiction. By setting the novel in a far distant future ruled by the absolutist Queen Claudia, Webb can hold up a satirical mirror to contemporary society. Her critical standpoint is broadly conservative by the standards of the time (she was no Mary Shelley) save for her belief that the world (or at least England) was better and more peaceably governed by a woman than by a man, thus making \u003cem\u003eThe Mummy\u003c\/em\u003e! something of an early feminist novel. As remarkable are Webb's uncannily accurate predictions of life in the future: coffee machines, smokeless cities a form of internet and AI doctors and lawyers. And although the mummy is now a staple of horror films and novels, one must not forget that Webb's novel marks the emergence of the \"mummy genre\". It is an extraordinary work.  \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan class=\"vrb_note\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan class=\"vrb_prov\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan class=\"vrb_biblio\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e","brand":"[WEBB, Jane (Mrs Jane C. Louden)]","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":55371988795769,"sku":"4592","price":25000.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1484\/0910\/files\/20250610_151941.jpg?v=1750784679"},{"product_id":"lovecraft-h-p-the-haunter-of-the-dark-and-other-tales-of-horror-1951-4959","title":"The Haunter of the Dark and Other Tales of Horror.","description":"\u003cbr\u003eLondon: Victor Gollancz Ltd. 1951.\u003cbr\u003e\u003ch4 class=\"vrb_heading\"\u003eWho is Lovecraft? H.P.Lovecraft's first appearance in the UK.\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan class=\"vrb_desc\"\u003eFirst UK edition. 8vo. 183x120mm. pp. [4], 5-303 [1bl]. Orange cloth, original yellow Gollancz jacket. Some fading to edges of boards. Chipping to edges of jacket and at head of spine and some soiling to spine and lower cover of jacket. Internally very good. A nice copy of the first collection of Lovecraft's work published outside America. This selection brings together ten of his best stories including \"The Rats in the Walls\" and \"The Call of Cthulhu\", the latter introducing Lovecraft's evil monster of that name and its fictional universe of malevolent forces ready to subsume the world. \u003cbr\u003eH.P.Lovecraft died, aged forty-seven, in 1937 having achieved little material success, his stories appearing in cheap pulp magazines and never published in book form. After his death however, his wildly imaginative fantasy stories gained a cult following in America but it wasn't until the early 1950s that they crossed the Atlantic when they were presented to an unsuspecting public in the form of this collection, hence the question on the front cover \"Who is Lovecraft?\" and the useful introduction by his protégé August Derleth.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan class=\"vrb_note\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan class=\"vrb_prov\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan class=\"vrb_biblio\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e","brand":"LOVECRAFT, H.P","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57193330573689,"sku":"4959","price":250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1484\/0910\/files\/4959_1.jpg?v=1777655441"},{"product_id":"shelley-mary-frankenstein-or-the-modern-prometheus-1831-5134","title":"Frankenstein: or the Modern Prometheus","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLondon: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley. 1831.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch4 class=\"vrb_heading\"\u003eThird edition published with the first illustration of Dr Frankenstein's monster\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan class=\"vrb_desc\"\u003eThird edition, published as volume IX of Standard Novels series issued with the first part of The Ghost-Seer. 162x100mm. pp. xii, 202; [2], 163 [5]. Frontispiece and illustrated additional title page. Black half calf, marbled paper covered boards, spine lettered and decorated in gilt. Housed in a green cloth covered dropback box. Rubbing to boards and scuffing to head and foot of spine. Corners bumped. Internally very good but with some foxing and slight soiling. The frontispiece and illustrated title page are somewhat browned. Blank preliminary with a contemporary gift inscription and a later ownership inscription.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan class=\"vrb_desc\"\u003eThis is the first Bentley edition, the first to appear in one volume and the first with any illustration. The frontispiece, engraved by W. Chevalier from a painting by Theodor von Holst, shows the monster emerging from a skeleton while Dr Frankenstein runs out of the door in horror. Holst (who was the great-uncle of the composer) studied with Fuseli and illustrated many important literary works especially those of the German romantics and the European gothicists. No-one was better qualified to produce the first illustration of the great gothic monster. Montague Summers, A Gothic Bibliography, p330.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan class=\"vrb_note\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan class=\"vrb_prov\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan class=\"vrb_biblio\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"SHELLEY, Mary","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57193337815417,"sku":"5134","price":12500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1484\/0910\/files\/5134_1.jpg?v=1777655614"},{"product_id":"stoker-bram-draculas-guest-and-other-weird-stories-1914-4935","title":"Dracula's Guest and Other Weird Stories","description":"\u003cbr\u003eLondon: George Routledge \u0026amp; Sons, Ltd. 1914.\u003cbr\u003e\u003ch4 class=\"vrb_heading\"\u003ethe first appearance of a new Dracula story\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan class=\"vrb_desc\"\u003eFirst edition. 8vo. 182x120mm. pp. [8], 200. Red cloth, decorated and lettered in blind on upper cover. Spine lettered and decorated in gilt and blind. Illustrated dustjacket in a later state with the price of 1\/3net replaced with 2\/- but in all other regards the jacket is the same as that of the first impression with its chilling illustration by Handforth. There is a split to the cloth at the joint with the lower cover and some fading to spine. The jacket is chipped at head and foot of spine and there is some creasing to top edge and chipping at the head and foot of the folds with the flaps. Internally there is a some foxing and marking but overall a very good copy in the rare and striking dustjacket.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003eDracula's Guest and Other Weird Stories\u003c\/em\u003e was published two years after Stoker's death. As his widow Florence explains in the preface, Stoker had, at his death, three collections of short stories planned for publication. This was one of them although Florence did add to this set the long title story which she describes as \"an hitherto unpublished episode from \"Dracula\"...originally excised owing to the length of the book\". She hopes that the story \"may prove of interest to the many readers of what is considered to be my husband's most remarkable work\". This is thus the first appearance of this additional Dracula story.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan class=\"vrb_note\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan class=\"vrb_prov\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan class=\"vrb_biblio\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e","brand":"STOKER, Bram","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57193338405241,"sku":"4935","price":6500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1484\/0910\/files\/4935_1.jpg?v=1777655651"}],"url":"https:\/\/voewoodrarebooks.com\/collections\/horror-gothic.oembed","provider":"Voewood Rare Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}