TALES OF MYSTERY AND IMAGINATION

First edition with Harry Clarke illustrations, first printing. Trade issue. Publisher's original olive cloth with dark green stamped designs and titles to the spine and upper board and gilt titles to the spine, in dustwrapper. Top edge gilt. 24 lavish full page black and white plates and further illustrations throughout the text by Harry Clarke. A lovely near fine copy, the binding square and firm, the cloth bright and fresh. The contents, with some offsetting to the front endpaper are otherwise clean throughout and without inscriptions or stamps. All plates remain in fine condition without marks or creases. Complete with the rubbed and nicked pictorial dustwrapper that has a couple of short closed tears and a tiny chip at the base of the spine. Seldom encountered in any condition dustwrapper, rarely so in this attractive, original condition.

Clarke's exquisite illustrations, made up of elegant, slender lines and large areas of black space and painstakingly detailed textures lend the sense of darkness and uncanny horror to the book that Poe's tales warrant.