CHRISTMAS TALES FOR CHRISTMAS CHARITIES. N0. 2. TWO NIGHTS IN A HAUNTED HOUSE IN RUSSIA. By the Author of 'A Night in a Haunted House in Ireland' ('My Guitar.') Written in Commemoration of the Marriage of the Grand Duchess Marie Alexandrovna with H.R.H the Duke of Edinburgh. First edition

[Turnerelli, Edward Tracy.]

Edité par Lionel Booth, London, 1873

A propos de cet article

Octavo, pp. [i-ix] x-xvi [xvii-xix] xx-xxxi [xxxii] xxxiii [xxxiv] [1-3] 4-150 [151-152: ads], publisher's decorated blue cloth, front and rear panels stamped in black and gold, a.e.g., cream coated endpapers. First edition. A rare curiosity highly characteristic of several mid-Victorian concerns: charity towards the poor and deference to royalty, linked together here by a third -- the general public's love of strong literary sensations, in particular the ghost story. This book, containing a single novella, was written, as its title page proclaims, to commemorate a marriage between English and Russian royals, and to raise funds for charities. It followed the example of Turnerelli's NIGHT IN A HAUNTED HOUSE IN IRELAND (1859), "of which Six Editions have been sold," as the author boasts in a note, "in courtly circles almost solely and exclusively ." The present volume is generously upholstered at front and rear with subsidiary material: prefaces, reminiscences, advertisements, excerpts from letters and reviews, details of the charitable disbursements of proceeds from the IRELAND volume. The present story, detailing the exploits of a daredevil female of the Russian aristocracy, has the stylistic heartiness of an English roast beef, notwithstanding its foreign setting (about which the author was, in fact, a published authority). All in all, an appealing trophy of Victorian supernatural literature." In 1859 that ardent 'old Conservative' Edward Tracy Turnerelli (1813-1896) published A NIGHT IN A HAUNTED HOUSE: A TALE OF FACTS, describing his own experiences in an ancient mansion at Kilkenny. It was a narrative of extraordinary interest; and publicly related, as it originally was told, at a meeting in aid of various charities at Ryde, it created an immense sensation. Perhaps even more notice was attracted by the same author's TWO NIGHTS IN A HAUNTED HOUSE IN RUSSIA, 1873, which ran through many editions, and was very widely discussed during the next decade and longer." - Montague Summers, The Supernatural Omnibus, p. 19. "First edition" is stated on the title page; the cover title reads "A / RUSSIAN / GHOST STORY / In aid of / The Distressed." Locke, A Spectrum of Fantasy, p. 215. Bleiler (1978), p. 196. Not in Reginald (1979; 1992). Bookplate affixed to the front paste-down. Cloth rubbed at spine ends, lower corner tips worn, hairline crack along inner front hinge which is still holding firm, a sound, very good copy. COPAC reports 5 copies; none added by OCLC. Rare. (#178546).

N° de réf. du vendeur 178546

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: CHRISTMAS TALES FOR CHRISTMAS CHARITIES. N0. 2. TWO NIGHTS IN A HAUNTED HOUSE IN RUSSIA. By the Author of 'A Night in a Haunted House in Ireland' ('My Guitar.') Written in Commemoration of the Marriage of the Grand Duchess Marie Alexandrovna with H.R.H the Duke of Edinburgh. First edition
• Éditeur: Lionel Booth, London
• Date de parution: 1873
• Reliure: Couverture rigide
• Édition: Edition originale
• Catalogues du vendeur:
  • Victorian Fiction
  • Supernatural