27 “The Greatest Of The Forerunners Of Modern Science Fiction” 32WELLS, H.G. Tales of the Unexpected. London, 1922. Octavo, original red cloth, dust jacket. $6200 First edition of this collection of 15 short stories of the supernatural, science fiction and mystery, in scarce original dust jacket. “Boldly melodramatic and intellectually provocative, Wells’ early scientific romances (as they came to be called) remain unsurpassed for their imagination and visionary power… Where Wells’ contemporaries saw him as adding what Tyndall had called the ‘scientific imagination’ to 19th-century romance, the 20th century regarded him as the greatest of the forerunners of modern science fiction” (ODNB). This collection includes: “The Remarkable Case of Davidson’s Eyes,” “The Moth,” “The Story of the Late Mr. Elvesham,” “Under the Knife,” “The Plattner Story,” “The Crystal Egg,” “The Man Who Could Work Miracles,” “A Dream of Armageddon,” “The New Accelerator,” “The Door in the Wall,” and others. Not in Hammond. Some foxing to text block edges, text and cloth clean, near-fine. Dust jacket with slight soiling and minor rubbing, small tape repair on verso at foot of spine, extremely good. “Her Whole Life Had Been A Long And Easy Dream To Lull Her Helplessly Into This Waking Nightmare” 33KING, Stephen. The Shining. Garden City, 1977. Octavo, original half black cloth, dust jacket, custom clamshell box. $7800 First edition of King’s third novel, a “masterwork, a bold product of an original vision,” inscribed “For Marvin, Best, Stephen King.” Inspired by Poe’s short story “The Masque of the Red Death,” King’s first hardcover bestseller is “his consummate ghostly tale” about “the haunted house to end all haunted houses” (Underwood & Miller, 174, 184). “The fact is that The Shining is a masterwork… a novel of astonishing passion, urgency, tenderness, understanding, and invention… In its uniting of an almost bruising literary power, a deep sensitivity to individual experience, and its operatic convictions, it is a very significant work of art” (Peter Straub). Book with pinpoint foxing to inscription page, price-clipped dust jacket with a few faint stains, tiny closed tears to foot of spine. A near-fine copy. Desirable inscribed.
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