The Wyvern Mystery. A Novel.

London: Ward and Downey.. 1889.

First 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.