“RACKHAM WAS BEGINNING TO FRIGHTEN HIMSELF”
POE, Edgar Allan. Tales of Mystery & Imagination. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, (1935). Quarto, original red cloth, original dust jacket.
First American trade edition, illustrated with 12 mounted full-page color plates, 17 full-page black-and-white drawings and pictorial black-and-white endpapers, and dust jacket, all by Rackham.
Rackham reflected late Victorian psychological insights in his dramatic illustrations for 25 of Poe's most haunting tales, among them "The Tell-Tale Heart," "The Pit and the Pendulum," "The Masque of the Red Death," "The Fall of the House of Usher" and "The Murders in the Rue Morgue." According to a friend, the artist referred to these illustrations as so full of horror "he was beginning to frighten himself" (Carpenter & Prichard, 439). Preceded by the signed limited edition of 460 copies. Internally, it is identical to the cloth-bound issue of the trade edition, save for the fact that the plates are not mounted. Riall, 189. Latimore & Haskell, 73.
A fine copy.