David Elginbrod: In Three Volumes

London: Hurst and Blackett, Publishers, 1863. First edition. Three octavo volumes "triple decker." (7 5/8 x 4 7/8 inches; 195 x 125 mm). viii, [1]-325, [1, blank]; vi, [1]-335, [1, blank]; vi, [1]-398 pp. Half-titles in each volume.

Publisher's original brick-red cloth. Boards ruled in blind. Spines lettered in gilt. Top edge untrimmed. Gray coated endpapers. Some staining and shelfwear to volumes. Spines a bit darkened. Volume I with cloth on back outer hinge cracking but firm. Some minor repairs to bottom of the spine, with no new cloth added. Watermark half-ring to front board. Volume III with cloth on back hinge and bottom of spine cracked. Inner hinges of volume III cracked buy firm. One-inch closed tear to top margin of leaf Y of volume III, not affecting text. Some minor foxing to volumes, mainly to preliminaries. Previous owner's ink signature to front pastedown of volumes I and III. Books housed in a custom cloth slipcase. A very good set.

"Encouraged by George Murray Smith, the publisher of Phantastes, to write novels, he wrote ‘prose fiction of two kinds, one of which dealt with the mystical and psychic and the other described humble life in Scotland' (DNB). David Elginbrod (1863), dedicated to the memory of Lady Byron, Adela Cathcart (1864), and The Portent: a Story of the Inner Vision of the Highlanders, Commonly Called the Second Sight (1864) were early works in the first category, which effectively challenged nineteenth-century materialism and contributed to the interest in psychic experiences." (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography). "...during this period he was struggling hard to write something as successful as Phantastes, but it was not until 1863 that he completed David Elginbrod, a long, didactic, and gothically romantic novel about a young man who has a career not dissimilar to MacDonald's own. His former publishers Smith and Elder turned it down, but it was read by Mrs Craik, who persuaded her own publishers Hurst and Blackett to take it on. It proved extremely popular and established MacDonald as a writer" (The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature).

Not in Sadleir or Wolff.

HBS 67836.

$1,850.