A MAD TOUR, or A Journey Undertaken in an Insane Moment Through Central Europe on Foot.

First edition, first printing. Signed by the author. Inscribed presentation copy. Publisher's original dark red cloth decorated and with titles in black and gilt to the upper board and spine. A very good copy, the binding firm with some rubbing at the corners and tips of the slightly rolled spine. The cloth is generally clean with just a few light marks and mild fading to the spine. The contents, with a little spotting to the prelims and mild rippling to the bottom edge of the rear 20 pages or so, are otherwise clean throughout. Scarce.

Inscribed by Charlotte Riddell in black ink at the head of the title page "Mrs. Laurie / with the author's love / Nov 6th 1891". Charlotte Elizabeth Lawson Riddell [née Cowan] (1832-1906) was a prolific novelist, in her time best known for stories of commercial London City life, however, her modern reputation rests on the revival of interest in her ghost stories and weird fiction. The present volume is lightly fictionalised travelogue based upon a European tour taken with a family friend (and lodger) Arthur Hamilton Norway, at a time when the author was badly over-worked and worried following the death of her husband. Their adventures abroad, bolstered by copious amounts of laudanum, (and in which Mr. Norway figures as "Bobby") are fully and amusingly described. Inscribed copies of Riddell's works are rarely encountered in commerce.