In His Own Image
London, John Lane: The Bodley Head, 1901 (first edition, colonial issue).
Octavo, xii, 421 pages.
Khaki cloth blocked in white; covers a little marked and rubbed; endpapers tanned; hinges cracked but firm; light indentations and other trifling blemishes to the edges; very light vertical crease to the text block (we also found this to be the case with another copy we had in stock - perhaps there was a lower level of quality control for the Indian and colonial market!); minor signs of age and handling; a very good copy.
One of only 500 copies of the colonial issue. The first edition was printed 'in America for the John Lane Company, New York. 1500 sets of sheets were imported to [the United Kingdom]. ... Of these, 500 copies, bound in light khaki cloth, blocked in white, were issued for publication in the Colonies' (Woolf A4). In addition to the variant binding, this issue has 'Lane's Indian and Colonial Library' on the half-title page, and does not contain the advertisements at the rear. This work expands Baron Corvo's earlier collection 'Stories Toto Told Me' (1898) from six to thirty-two tales. In the framing narrative the stories are told by a teenage Italian peasant boy, Toto, to his English patron 'Don Friderico' (a thinly-veiled self-portrait of the author). 'The stories are parodies of classical and Christian myths in which the two worlds of classical humanism and Christian belief are fused by a literary style which often approaches profanation. Corvo brought together Mt. Zion and Mt. Olympus, the theocracy to which he paid allegiance all his life. The book is Corvo's first major projection of himself, and his first major literary attack on his "enemies"' (Andrews, C. A.: 'A Baron Corvo Exhibit', Books at Iowa Archive, 1964).
Item #146707
Price (AUD):
$250.00