LOVELY EDITION OF POE’S WORKS, WITH 73 PHOTOGRAVURES, HANDSOMELY BOUND
POE, Edgar Allan. The Complete Works. New York and London: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1902. Ten volumes. Octavo, contemporary three-quarter brown calf, elaborately gilt-decorated spines, raised bands, red and burgundy morocco spine labels, marbled boards and endpapers, top edges gilt, uncut and unopened.
Lovely edition of Poe’s Works, copiously illustrated with 73 photogravure plates after Frederick Simpson Coburn, handsomely bound in three-quarter calf-gilt.
As the author of dozens of acclaimed works including "The Tell-Tale Heart" and "The Raven," few writers have shaped the course of literature as did Edgar Allan Poe. "His influence has been incalculable in both verse and prose on later writers… 'This finest of finest of artists,' Bernard Shaw has called him" (Kunitz & Haycraft, 625). Edited and chronologically arranged on the basis of the standard text, and with a critical introduction by Charles F. Richardson. Coburn's illustrations for Poe and Dickens contributed to his early success. He later received recognition as a painter of rural Canadian landscapes, horses and winter scenes. With numerous woodcut head- and tail-pieces and decorative initials. Bookplates of Joel Cheney Wells, co-founder of the Wells Historical Museum which grew out of his overflowing personal antique collection focusing on clocks and paperweights.
Interiors generally quite nice, light wear to original calf, including a few spine ends. Near-fine condition.