Some favourite subjects:
Some favourite subjects:
[FAIRBURN, Edwin]. The Ships of Tarshish: a sequel to Sue's "Wandering Jew." By Mohoao. [with] The Ships of the Future being an epilogue to The Ships of Tarshish ... (1) London, [printed by] Hall & Co 1867 but published in Auckland in 1884 with an Upton & Co, Auckland label pasted on the title. (2) Auckland, Upton &c [1889]. (1) Octavo original illustrated wrapper (rebacked, chipped and a bit creased); [4], 32pp prologue printed in Auckland in 1884, double page facsimile letter from Admiral Popoff, two plates: plan & profile, 104pp. First few leaves dog eared, still a decent enough copy. Inscribed "J Baber from the author ... 1886" at the top of the title. This must be either father or son James Baber, both surveyors from Auckland like Fairburn. (2) Octavo publisher's printed wrapper (detached and quite chipped); 32pp (last leaf blank) and folding plate. Stained at the bottom edge but pretty much invisible apart from the wrapper; quite good inside. Indistinct 1891 Auckland library stamp and a clear pencil signature, G Grey, at the top of the front wrapper which I'm told is Sir George Grey's and could well be. Au$600
First edition of this bit of pioneering New Zealand science fiction, the first novel by a NZ born author. Fairburn's prologues tell us that the book was printed in London in late 1866 but, apart from about 30 copies he received and gave away and 70 copies that vanished, it sat in a warehouse for 16 years.
Admiral Popoff's gracious 1880 letter is a reply to Fairburn about the marked similarities between Popoff's experimental ships and Fairburn's radical new ships of Tarshish, something like sinister polished iron citadels and redoubts, that save England in a near future invasion. Our hero is a disdained genius until he inherits the 15 million pounds left in trust for generations as told in Sue's only partly fictional tale. Four million goes on his ships and, after saving the empire and winning the forbidden young lady, he decides to put the rest into education reform and three million toward the new land registration act. Here's a genius with his head screwed on right.
From 'The Ships of the Future' we learn that of the some 400 copies of 'Tarshish' maybe 30 were sold, over 300 he gave away, and there were still sheets left. Those sold fetched a shilling each while they cost him 2/9 each. This, I figure, without adding the bookseller's cut, meant a loss of £53/10/- altogether. Undismayed, Fairburn has headed back into the breach - or bottomless pit of self publishing - with details left out of his novel and further thoughts about the mercantile form of his ships. With consideration and research his ships have been scaled up to mammoth size. These multi storey monuments powered by wave motion are, in his elevations, somewhere between a colossal stupa and menacing Star Wars battle ship. As an engineer Fairburn might be dog food but as designer he was half a light year ahead of his time.
[TYSSOT DE PATOT, Simon.] Voyages et Avantures de Jaques Masse. A Bordeaux, Jaques l'Aveugle 1710 [ie The Hague c1715?]. 12mo modern calf. Title a touch rough around the edge, browning of the earlier sections, a pretty good copy. Au$950
First edition it seems of this imaginary Australian voyage and troublemaking utopia. The bibliographical world has accepted Rosenberg's separation and stretch of the four '1710' editions over four decades, with the first appearing no earlier than 1714 and the last not before 1742. As I have the first, his 'A', I'm hardly going to argue with him.
Early commentators dismissed Tyssot and his book with a snarl: atheistic and scandalous, socialist, meprisable (contemptible), inexpressibly confused; but modern scholars have gone industrial. A quick survey shows the wealth of academic ore mined from Tyssot: Judaism and Enlightenment; Language and the History of Thought; Astronomy, Prophecy and Imposture; Cartesianism and Female Equality; The Ideal Language; Masks, Blackness, Race; Early Deism in France; The Wandering Jew; and I'm sure there's plenty left. I do wonder how many of these scholars read the book: more than one describes a very different book from the one before me.
RADCLIFFE, Ann. The Italian, or, The Confessional of the Black Penitents. A romance. Dublin, printed for P. Wogan &c 1797. Two volumes 12mo contemporary sheep (some insect chewing of leather around the spines). Some browning and signs of use but a pleasing enough original copy. Au$850
First Irish edition, hard on the heels of the London edition. Having never recovered from The Mysteries of Udolpho and the wonder and awe it produced in me - I still wonder how it didn't kill the Romantic movement stone dead and I had an awful urge to slap Emily every time she trembled in ecstacy faced with a slice of nature - I'm unable to face The Italian. The conflicting opinions of it being her both her best and her worst book make it a bit intriguing.
[ERSKINE, Thomas]. Armata. A fragment. [with] The Second Part of Armata. London, John Murray 1817. Two volumes octavo, together in 19th century half calf, spine elaborately gilded. A bit of browning, a handsome pleasing copy. Au$750
Second editions of both parts. This now obscure Antarctic imaginary voyage to another world connected to ours at the south pole might have been popular, in a mild and genteel way: there were supposedly five editions of the first part in 1817 and the second part likewise reached five editions by 1819. It is possible they were manufactured as part of Erskine’s joke in the preface of part two that histories such as this were doomed to obscurity whereas if he called it a romance it was guaranteed two editions at least by the lending libraries alone. While the first and second edition of the first part are different settings, the second and fourth editions are from the same setting. The first and second editions of part two are from the same setting, as is the fourth edition up until signature K which is where Erskine added some footnotes.
Erskine's Armata is dystopian in intent but he is too polite and good natured to go overboard about it and although a couple of hundred or so sailors, from earth and from Armata, are obliterated at each end of the book they are dispatched in a sentence each. Even the narrator's beloved Morvina, who is literally killed by her induction into society, is done to death in a quiet half page, the narrator apologetic for being tactless enough to mention it. But, skimming past the legal religious stuff - I couldn't follow the outrageous fraud the clergy put over the government and justice system - there are some delightful scenes of bone crunching mayhem once Armata society sets off for an evening out.
Erskine, also now obscure, was once described as the "greatest advocate as well as the first forensic orator who ever appeared in any age" (James High as quoted in Patterson's 'Nobody's Perfect'). He remained all his life a fierce defender of freedom of speech and the liberty of the press with one startling lapse: after defending Thomas Paine at the cost of his own position he prosecuted a bookseller for distributing Paine's writing. Apparently he later returned the retainer in remorse but he remained open to accusations of self interest in that case.
[GASPEY, Thomas]. The History of George Godfrey. Written by himself. London, Colburn 1828. Three volumes octavo, recent half calf. Half titles in volumes two and three, not one, as seems proper. A marginal tidemark in a couple of sections toward the end of volume III, stains from the original leather corners at each end; a rather good, fresh copy. On the blank before the title is, in a miniscule hand, something of a review of the book by, I presume, the original reader in which remarks are made about easy recognition of several respectable London criminals: stock brokers, auctioneers, lawyers, police magistrates, ministers, and the like. And the original of Mr Haversham. Au$2250
Only edition until recent reprints of this rare picaresque crime thriller, usually pulled out by academics as a pioneer Newgate novel; ie the sort of degrading, mean stuff that no gentle reader should read; the sort of stuff that belongs in penny sheets with short words and big type for the low classes, not for anyone who can afford a subscription to a proper lending library.
It is, as well, an Australian novel with the major hunk of volume three devoted to our hapless fool transported to New South Wales where he escapes and joins the 'Bush Rangers' around the Windsor/Hunter Valley region. It is, more interesting, also a proper mystery with the darkest deeds unveiled and an evil master mind unmasked by a self appointed detective at the end. This brings us to maybe the most interesting point.
Our hero is, as hinted, a hapless, craven idiot with a feeble moral compass and the real hero of the book is the only decent and clever - as opposed to cunning - character who acts as detective and saviour: Mr Haversham, who started life as William Beckford before going into the fictional character business. Haversham is an obscenely rich eccentric who is obsessed with building his overwhelming gothic Priory and tower, behind high walls, and shunned by society for his unproven crime. Haversham's crime was merely the murder of his young wife, not the unsavoury charges against Beckford.
I found no suggestion that Gaspey knew Beckford but, through Mr Haversham, he debunks several captious slurs doing the rounds, including the mysterious banquets served every day to the lonesome Beckford.
The Monthly Review wrote a friendly and generous review while the Athenaeum padded out pages with excerpts from the book only to condemn it as low trash and likely an evil influence: "From the nature of the book itself, the style of its execution is coarse, vulgar, and often unintelligible and uninteresting, and though some of its exposures may be correct, yet we doubt much if these publications be not injurious." Gaspey wrote to the Athenaeum complaining little about his 'chastising' but defending his research into Godfrey's travels. Both reviewers predicted it would be popular. Gaspey's publisher had money in both these magazines, I believe.
Ferguson listed this which, I guess, made Miller/Macartney skip it as non-fiction, so I expected to find it well represented in Australian libraries. Not so, Trove finds only the Mitchell and Monash copies. Not so many anywhere else in the world, either. Wolff had a handful of Gaspey novels but not this while Sadleir ignored him. It does deserve to be in Hubin.
KENNEDY, William [ed]. The Continental Annual, and Romantic Cabinet, for 1832. With illustrations by Samuel Prout. London, Smith, Elder [1832]. Octavo publisher's morocco; x,313pp, 13 engraved plates including the extra title. Plates a bit foxed but in all quite good. Au$75
Not a bad gathering of romantic, often near gothic fiction with such tales as The Fanatic; The Wax Figure; The Black Gate of Treves; The Spy; and The Prima Donna, a Tale of Music.
SUE, Eugene. Paula Monti: or, The Hotel Lambert. London, Chapman and Hall 1845. Octavo 19th century gilt half calf (side a little scuffed); 20 plates "engraved under the superintendence of Mr. Charles Heath, from designs by Jules David". An excellent and handsome copy, mostly still unopened. Au$175
First English edition of this romantic thriller. From near the end: " ... deceived by the dusk, by Bertha's cloak, and particularly by his conviction that his wife was in the chalet, shot the princess. The next morning the shawl of Iris was found floating in one of the lakes. It may be remembered that De Morville had said to Paula that a solemn oath ... another of the machinations of Iris ... the gipsy girl had ... represented a fearful picture of the fierce and suspicious jealousy of the Prince ... some murderous strategem ... " And I've still left you plenty of thrills.
CALABRELLA, Baroness de. Evenings at Haddon Hall ... with illustrations from designs by George Cattermole. London, Colburn 1846. Largish octavo later half blue crushed morocco by Root; 24 handcoloured plates. An excellent, handsome, quite remarkable copy. Au$375
First edition. Haddon Hall hasn't been admitted into the Gothic canon and this is almost unfair. A melange of tales - one by Ainsworth - most have more than enough blood, murder, turmoil, torment, torture and revenge to qualify. This was immensely popular through the 19th century, perhaps due to Cattermole, but I think it now has been wrongly relegated with the simpering Victorian books down the pretty end of the shelf.
I couldn't find a publisher's advertisement for coloured copies so it presumably wasn't offered for sale coloured; I did find a record of a copy, also bound by Root, with the plates in two states - what these states were wasn't explained.
de CHABRILLAN, Celeste. Les Voleurs d'Or. Paris, Levy 1857. Octavo contemporary cloth backed mottled boards. Expected browning and spotting, a pretty good copy. Au$1750
First edition, and rare, of this pioneer thriller of the Australian gold fields by the former prostitute, dancer and toast of Paris, now wife of the French Consul in Melbourne. Like who knows how many women writers of the 19th century, Celeste took to novels and plays, starting with this, to climb out of a poverty pit dug by a malevolent or feckless husband. In her case, her blacksheep noble husband - the comte de Chabrillan - was feckless, careless enough to die in Melbourne in 1858.
LANG, John. Botany Bay. London, William Tegg 1859. Octavo publisher's orange cloth printed in black (rather grubby and faded, spine shabby but solid). Definitely second hand and still most acceptable. With John Lane Mullins' gift bookplate to St Sophia's Library. The cover is dated 1860 as is Mitchell's copy. Au$850
First edition of Lang's maybe most reprinted and best regarded book. "Thinly veiled" is the usual description for fiction that might be an insult to some readers so Lang's preface begs the pardon of his Australian audience for words unrelated to this book that saw him unpopular before his departure and assures us that he does not intend to be "sarcastic or insulting" in this book.
An old clipping claims that the same folk who bought up every copy they could of Mudie's Felonry of New South Wales and destroyed unacceptable pages did the same with this, making complete copies rare. As the first story isn't really true there's no reason to believe the second. I can't find any record of mutilated copies of this but I can't find many copies at all. Trove finds four locations and Worldcat adds the four standard libraries of Britain.
[RYMER, James Malcolm]. The Dark Woman; or, the Days of the Prince Regent. London, John Dicks 1861-62. Two volumes largish octavo half gilt calf; 104 wood engravings after Gilbert, Sargent and Standfast. Au$1850
Rare - any and all of Rymer's novels are rare - and an outstanding copy, made more so by being in a handsome contemporary binding of dark green half calf, spines satisfyingly rich with gilt and contrasting labels (the labels consign authorship to Errym, Rymer's most common pseudonym) - almost unknown on penny (or halfpenny) dreadfuls. On the endpapers is the inscription of John Gordon Edward Sibbald, 7th December 1866 and the bindings speak of a well-heeled reverence for what was a trashy thriller but the book itself is unthumbed. Perhaps Sibbald had another reading copy? It seems inconceivable that it was an unwanted gift.
According to Summers, The Dark Woman was issued in 104 weekly parts at a halfpenny each; in monthly parts at threepence (which seems dear) and as two volumes supplied with titles and contents on completion - as here. All are made up of the weekly parts.
One of Rymer's later novels, well after his successes of the forties like The Black Monk or Varney the Vampyre, but Rymer never ran short of thrilling deeds - dastardly, dare-devil or gruesome. Any page or two will exhaust the meek reader.
GOODRICH, Henry Newton. Raven Rockstrow: or, the Pedlar's Dream. A romance of Melbourne. Melbourne, Caxton Repository 1864. Octavo later (earlyish-mid c20th) morocco; [8],7-258pp, (wood?) engraved frontispiece by Calvert after a drawing by John Fallon. Name and a couple of extraneous squirls on the title, some browning; a pretty good copy with the bookplate of Harry Austin Brentnall, medico and bookmaker whose books used to be ubiquitous in the Sydney trade. Au$1150
Only edition of this quite rare sensation thriller, dubbed the first Melbourne novel proper. Certainly it's a grim metropolitan book set in the slums where life revolves around the pawn shop. From two brief paragraphs I picked out these descriptions of Goodrich's Melbourne: dreary, isolation, misery, oppressive, ghostly waste, and forlorn. Blackmail, murder, a story within a story; it's all here.
This has one of the most captivating illustrations I've seen in a thriller. The frontispiece, on pink paper, is a dark, dark engraving that demands close inspection; maybe the best depiction of what mysterious deeds in the dark of night really look like. The binding is neat and workmanlike more than inspired. Most of the twentieth century was not a good period for Australian binding.
LAFITTE, J.P. [Jean Baptiste Pierre]. The Red Doctor. Translated from the French ... by Huon d'Aramis. Philadelphia, Lippincott 1866. Octavo publishers patterned cloth. Some natural browning and some splodges; a rather good copy. Au$275
First edition in English of this proper sensation novel. It begins with a "frantic and horrible" murder and impersonation in chapter one and picks up speed after that. It is a novel about Mesmer of course, what else could it be after that introduction.
The best description is a contemporary review found by Robert Eldridge: "This singular farrago of mystery, murder, and mesmerism belongs to the sensation school of modern French fiction ... it contains an abundance of highly-wrought and exciting passages, which, in spite of their violation of truth, probability, or even possibility, absorb the reader’s attention until, to his surprise, he finds himself at the very last page." (The Nation, Sept 20 1866). Huon d'Aramis, translator of at least one other French book, must be a pseudonym but whose I don't know.
CLARKE, Marcus.. Long Odds. Melbourne, Clarson Massina 1869. octavo publisher's blue cloth blocked in gilt and black; eight wood engravings by Thomas Carrington. Minor blotches and smudges to the covers, signs of use, quite a good copy. Au$975
First edition of Clarke's first novel, previously serialised in his own 'Colonial Monthly' (a short lived venture). "A wretched tale of folly and baseness" but not quite a thriller in the modern sense - the murder, after all, happens near the end of the book. It would not be out of place though in a shelf of sensational novels. Clarke purposely avoided writing a novel set in Australia, preferring to explore what was to become a popular genre - the young colonial 'back home' - carving a new destiny out of the wilds of London and the counties.
HAZELTON, Harry. The Trail of Blood. A tale of New York. [bound with] Life Among the Red Indians. An Indian Romance. Glasgow, John S. Marr & Sons [c1870?]. Two volumes octavo together in contemporary quarter straight grain calf and cloth; 115 & 127pp. Some light browning but rather good. Au$250
Rare Glasgow editions of rare enough dime novels; John S. Marr & Sons published cheap popular stuff between about 1865 and 1885. The more interesting is of course 'The Trail of Blood'. Worldcat lists a New York published edition copyrighted 1866 but can't find a copy in any library. Neither can I in any of the expected libraries. This Glasgow edition is is held by the Scottish National Library, who date it 1867, and the Library of Congress who are more circumspect dating it between 1866 and 1877.
Cambridge University has a John S Marr printing of another Hazelton title (they date 1867) and tells us George Savage wrote as Harry Hazelton but surely no-one called George Savage would change that name to write cheap thrillers. Harry Hazelton was a Beadle house name usually applied to westerns and wilderness titles; it's a surprise to find it on a contemporary tale of turmoil, intrigue and murder set among the well to do of New York.
BROOKS, Detective James J. Whiskey Drips. A series of interesting sketches illustrating the operations of the whiskey thieves in their evasion of the law ... to which is added, a circumstantial account of his attempted murder by the Philadelphia Whiskey Ring ... the only authenticated instance of hired assassins in the United States. Philadelphia, Evans [1873]. Octavo publisher's decorated brown cloth blocked in gilt and black (spine tips worn); 349,[3]pp and four wood engraved plates. Inner front hinge cracked but firm. Au$120
First edition, it was reprinted or re-issued in 1876 with the duller title 'The Adventures of a United States Detective'. Quite uncommon, unlikely as it seems for this type of American book of this period. Usually there are plenty of shabby copies of such books around.
Unlike many of these true stories Detective Brooks did exist, he was famous for his Whiskey Ring exploits. He became head of the American Secret Service and died in 1895 of heart trouble - apparently exacerbated by having a bullet imbedded in it for 16 years. Whether or not he wrote this, it is pacy and readable and as much of his investigations involved corruption within the service as illicit distilling.
THOMAS, Edward A. At Swords' Point. A novel. Philadelphia, Claxton &c, 1877. Octavo publisher's green cloth. A bit of browning at the ends, minor signs of use; a rather good copy. Au$250
First edition of this scarce thriller that begins with a desperate chase and gets complicated soon. A villain is accused of murder and our hero, a young lawyer, is happy to prosecute him ... until he looks at the evidence.
CLARKE, Marcus, et al. The Australian Christmas Box: a series of stories ... Melbourne, Cameron Laing [1878?]. Octavo publisher's printed wrapper (signs of use, a touch ragged); two full page illustrations. Small hole in a margin touching a few letters that looks like a production flaw. Pretty good. Au$750
Clarke, Robert Whitworth and Waif Wander (Mary Fortune) have done the right thing and provided tales filled with madness and murder. The others ... meh. Grosvenor Bunster's effort is a revolting, heartwarming tale of redemption a la Christmas Carol.
OLIPHANT, Mrs. [Margaret Oliphant Wilson Oliphant]. A Beleaguered City being a narrative of certain recent events in the city of Semur, in the Department of the Haute Bourgogne. A story of the seen and the unseen. London, Macmillan 1880. Octavo contemporary gilt vellum with a stiff yapp front edge, all edges gilded (spine slightly darkened). Endpapers spotted, a handsome copy inscribed on the title: "For Harriet Kingscote with love and good wishes. M.O.W.O." Au$1500
First edition of this occult fantasy - in which the dead of Semur teach the living a lesson - that is better than modern critics might have you believe. Even the tackiest passages of wish fullfilment are balanced by the clean edge of ... hardly realism, but certainly a quiet sardonic humour.
Harriet Kingscote was probably family - a Louisa Oliphant married a Kingscote in the 1840s - but then, every family that had a whiff of the peerage was family. It was hard not to marry your cousin. Mrs Oliphant did. The inscription is dated four years after publication and in the meantime she had published another hundred or so books probably, but A Beleaguered City was one of the very few of her novels that she liked.
ALDRICH, T.B. The Stillwater Tragedy. Boston, Houghton Mifflin 1880. Octavo, excellent in publisher's brown cloth blocked in gilt, red and black. Au$175
First edition; classic detective fiction and an anti-labour novel, with a murdered corpse at the end of the first chapter and an unjustly suspected hero standing up to thuggish strike leaders. While barely inflammatory - the author and printer did not, after all, have to go into hiding - this novel did stir up more conversation than usual amongst his readers. His readers can't have been expected to take much exception to it: Twain wrote to Aldrich that he had enjoyed reading it in the notorious periodical of Howells and that Mrs Clemens was looking forward to it between baby feeds. The connections between Aldrich and the extreme anti-labor literature of the late 19th century are not hard to trace.
Ned Nimble Amongst the Bushrangers of Australia. London, Edwin J. Brett [188-?]. Two volumes large octavo, bound together in a modern wrapper with a copy of a cover mounted; original illustrated wrappers bound in. 276pp, 23 full page illustrations. Some repairs and splodges to the wrappers; natural browning of the paper in the first volume; still, rather good. Au$1250
Ned Nimble's Australian romp appeared in the 'Boys of England' in 1882 and in parts and collected editions in two versions. This is the first, coming out of the Boys of England offices. The other comes out of Harkaway House, a name change made in the early nineties. The second version came in, I think, 17 weekly parts adding up to 264 pages.
The wrappers are sensibly recycled with part numbers and price at the top (parts 28 and 30, price 4d) and volume numbers and new price stamped at the bottom (Nimble Series Vol 9 and 10; price one shilling). And the volumes are recycled from unsold parts with the original stab marks visible. I don't get how they could have spun this out to 30 parts, there are clearly 23.
Trove finds two copies of the second version and one of this. But the covers of that one have different Nimble series volume numbers. Confused? Bored?
Kate Temple? The Fair Mystery. By the author of "Strangely Parted," &c., &c. London, Edwin J. Brett [188-?]. Largish octavo publisher's colour illustrated boards (spine quite chipped and apparently sometime repaired); two colour wood engraved plates, full page wood engraved illustrations. A very decent copy. Au$475
The book edition of a work first issued in parts. Hubin attributes this to Charlotte M. Braeme or Brame while the British Library attributes 'Strangely Parted' to Kate Temple and dates it 1885. I think we can discount the Brame (aka Bertha M. Clay) attribution which is based on perhaps a confusion with her novel 'A Fair Mystery' - a different book altogether. Kate Temple also becomes suspect when we find no other title under that name. A fabulously ripe sensation thriller, it's hard to choose a representative passage. There are so many on almost every page.
Copac and OCLC find two copies of The Fair Mystery: in the BL, apparently in parts, and in Canberra at the ANU, apparently this book issue.
Takeda Korai. [Yamato Rasha Yokohama Bidan]. Tokyo? Kinjudo 1881 (Meiji 14). Three volumes 18x12cm, publisher's colour woodblock wrappers; 18 pages in each volume, illustrated by Chikanobu throughout with three frontispieces, a single page and a double page plate in colour in the first volume. Understandable thumbing but rather good with a laid down, chewed but mostly complete colour woodcut outer wrapper (fukuro). Au$1350
Slight maybe but there's a novel, or a play at least, just in those front covers. Yamato Rasha is, I'm told, a soap of women's lives with western men in Yokohama. Even I can tell, from the pictures, that they were lives filled with conflict, devious schemes, jealousy, violence by footwear ... busy indeed.
There is a modern reprint but I find only one entry in worldcat for the original outside Japan.
CLARKE, Marcus. The Mystery of Major Molineux, and Human Repetends. Melbourne, Cameron Laing 1881. Octavo modern cloth; title page dusty with a small piece from the bottom corner - without its front wrapper for a while it seems - but rather good once you're past that. Without the slip announcing that half the profits would go to Clarke's widow and children. Au$875
First edition and hard to find. Clarke’s last work and just posthumous; R.P. Whitworth’s preface is an obituary. Major Molineux is a Tasmanian psychological suspense thriller which for "intensity of sustained interest and soul—thrilling excitement it is only surpassed by Edgar Allen Poe ..." (preface). Possibly quite true though the conclusion is unsatisfyingly modern in its inconclusiveness. The Human Repetends, an earlier story and set in Melbourne, has similar "weird, physiological, and psychological" interest.
WILKINS, W.A. The Cleverdale Mystery; or, the machine and its wheels. NY, Fords, Howard & Hulbert 1882. Octavo, very good in publisher's illustrated brown cloth blocked in black and gilt. Au$150
First (only?) edition of this melodramatic thriller of politics, murder and dastardly deeds set in the sub-Adirondack playground of Lake George. Wilkins, editor of the local Whitehall Times, also published a play of this in the same year.
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