Grenville Mellen Editor (1 results)

First American edition. First American edition. [xii], 197, 12 (publisher's list); [iv], 204, [xii] pp. Complete in two volumes. Bound in original drab boards over modern rebacked dark brown morocco leather spines lettered in gilt. Very Good+ with slight fading to spines, light scuffing and minor spot at bottom of volume II. Boards are soiled and worn at edges, corners bumped. Fore-edges are typically foxed. Original endpapers have female inscriptions dated to year of publication; old hand ownership markings by women on following prelims as well. Contents lightly toned with minor foxing. This first US printing in the Colman's Library of Romance series is scarce, even more so than the British edition two years earlier. Scarce supernatural fantasy novel by Sara Coleridge (1802-1852), the only daughter of literary giant and poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834). The protagonist is visited by a spectre-like creature who introduces him to a parallel world. Many critics consider this work to be an early precursor to the modern fantasy novel; one critic in 2021 going so far as to dub it "the first fantasy novel." Magill called it "an important precursor of J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth fantasies.".…