The Saragossa Manuscript: A Collection of Weird Tales

First American edition, first printing. [xx], 233, [1] pp. Bound in publisher's black cloth stamped in multi-colored with spine lettered in red and grey. Near Fine with production crease to cloth at spine, faint scratching to upper board and bookplate of noted H.P. Lovecraft collector James Strand on front pastedown. In a Near Fine unclipped dust jacket with trivial scratch to front panel but no appreciable sunning to red of spine panel, which is uncommon. A labyrinthian nesting doll of a novel, typically referred to as The Manuscript Found in Saragossa, set during the Napoleonic Wars with nods to The Arabian Nights and Boccaccio's Decameron, penned by Polish polymath and nobleman Count Jan Potocki (1761-1815). Characterized by supernatural sci-fi elements, the work lent itself easily to modern audiences hungry for weird fiction. Later adapted into film by Polish director Wojciech Has in 1965 starring Zbigniew Cybulski as Potocki's valiant officer Alphonse van Worden.