Through the Night: Tales of Shades and Shadows
Original price
£1,000.00
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Original price
£1,000.00
Original price
£1,000.00
£1,000.00
-
£1,000.00
Current price
£1,000.00
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Manchester and London: Abel, Heywood and Simpkin Marshall. 1882.
A Dour Weird. A rare collection of Victorian supernatural tales
First edition. 8vo. 183x120mm. pp. [8], 303 [1bl], 20 adverts dated February 1883. Publishers red cloth, block in black. Very light bumping to head and foot of spine. Some foxing but overall a very good copy. Worldcat locates only ten copies and none appear in the auction records.
Mrs G. Linnaeus Banks (aka Isabella Banks, née Isabella Varley) is best known for her novel The Manchester Man which tells the story of the growth of the city through the life of its hero Jabez Clegg. Mrs Banks was a leading figure in the literary, intellectual and political life of Manchester. She was also interested in local folklore and legend and it is these that lie behind Through the Night: indeed, in the appendix, Mrs Banks provides the sources for each of the fourteen tales. The stories were originally published in periodicals and were collected here for the first time towards the end of her life. The collection is firmly in the tradition of the Victorian supernatural spine-chiller - ghosts, fairies, dreams, voodoo and curses - and, with its antiquarian interests can perhaps be seen as a precursor to M.R. James. The work is best summed up in the wonderful title of one of the stories - A Dour Weird.
