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This is an exceptional copy of the U.S. first edition of Stevenson s tale set during England s War of the Roses, this copy in the perishable wraps binding, seldom seen and almost never thus, in very good plus condition. ConditionThis U.S. first edition is most commonly seen in the publisher's red cloth. Far scarcer is the publisher's wraps binding. The thin, pale yellow wraps binding of this U.S. first edition is here a remarkable survivor. The wraps are both firmly attached and almost fully intact, with only fractional loss at the lower joints and three of the four flap fold corners. The binding is bright, with no color shift between the covers and spine and only light soiling. It is also square, tight, and manifestly unread, as evidenced by the lack of any vertical creasing to the spine. The front cover corners and rear cover fore edge show a little wrinkling. The contents are clean with no previous ownership marks, and no spotting. We note only mild age-toning and some mild soiling to the fore and bottom edges. The book has long been protected within a handsome case. The book is housed in a green cloth chemise lined with laid, watermarked paper. The chemise is housed within a quarter black Morocco slipcase with green cloth sides. The rounded Morocco spine features raised spine bands bracketed by blind rules, gilt printed title, author, publisher, and date, and gilt rule transitions to the cloth sides. Condition of the chemise and slipcase is very good, only lightly scuffed. The Black Arrow"The Black Arrow is an adventure story for boys set at the time of the Wars of the Roses and founded on the style of the Paston Letters. It was written hurriedly on commission for Young Folks, where it was serialized with great success, under the Captain George North pseudonym, from June to October 1883. Stevenson dismissed it as 'Tushery' and it did not appear in book form until 1888." Here is the first publication in book form, in its most scarce and perishable binding.StevensonScottish author Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) was best known for his novels. Stevenson cast off his family profession of engineer and led a rather peripatetic, albeit sickly, life (he had tuberculosis), his final years spent in the South Seas, including Tahiti, Honolulu, Gilbert Islands, and Samoa, where he died suddenly of a cerebral hemorrhage at age 44. Stevenson "was overpraised in his lifetime and immediately after his death, and has been considerably undervalued since. A series of collected editions bore witness to the popularity of his books with the general reader, but from the 1930s onwards he was ignored or patronized by academic critics as merely a writer for children." In recent decades, "Stevenson s reputation drastically appreciated as "a writer of originality and power" whose novels can be "brilliant adventure stories with subtlemoral overtones". References: The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson; ODNB; Britannica.
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