Tales of Mystery and Imagination. London: Harrap, [1923]. First Edition Thus. Handsomely bound in full black crushed morocco boards, spine with raised bands, lettered & tooled in gilt, pictorial panel for original board retained to centre of upper cover. A nice bright copy.

Finely illustrated by Harry Clarke with eight full colour tipped-in plates & 24 full-page mono plates, decorative title page and 26 vignettes, some repeated throughout the book.

A spectacular version of Poe’s popular tales. First published in October 1919, this edition was published in October 1923 & was the first to feature coloured plates.

This impressive project came about as a result of the success of Clarke’s illustrated Hans Andersen’s Fairy Tales which Harrap had published in 1916. Widely acclaimed and subsequently pirated, critics were stunned at how ‘his tremendous imagination vitalised pictorially with amazing power and invention the Tales of Mystery and Imagination.’ Such was their success that Harrap issued this edition of his Poe Tales in 1923 with eight new colour plates tipped-in, several additional line decorations and a new cover and jacket.

[Steenson A2.e]