POE, Edgar Allan.

£20,000 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque. First edition. Poe's influential first collection of tales gathers all 25 stories he had produced to date. They include two of his best-known stories, "Fall of the House of Usher" and "MS. Found in a Bottle", along with the first known appearance in print of "Why the Little Frenchman Wears His Hand in a Sling".The popularity of the magazine appearance of "Fall of the House of Usher" convinced the publisher Lea and Blanchard to publish a collection, on condition that Poe would retain the copyright and receive 20 copies in lieu of royalties. Poe revised the stories for book publication in a "bid for fame, and while the volumes were favourably reviewed, they did not sell rapidly. Yet they contained some of the greatest short stories in the literature of the world" (Quinn, p. 290). Though his originality divided contemporary opinion, some reviewers recognised his "power for vivid description, an opulence of imagination, a fecundity of invention, and a command over the elegances of diction which have seldom been displayed" (Tasistro). Nevertheless, the book proved a commercial failure which did not sell out during his lifetime, and some copies sold in later years were reissued with a cancel title page. Poe's offer to the publisher in 1841 to produce an expanded second edition, again forfeiting royalties, was quickly declined.The publishers wrote to Poe on 28 September 1839 stating they would "print a Small Ed. say 1750 copies". However, in 188

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