Poe's Tales of Mystery and Imagination | 1935, first trade edition illustrated by Arthur Rackham

Arthur Rackham’s haunting vision of Poe’s darkest tales, in the rare original dust jacket.

First trade edition of Tales of Mystery and Imagination, published by George G. Harrap in 1935. Large octavo, bound in the original gilt-pictorial black cloth and complete with the elusive pictorial dust jacket, unclipped and showing Rackham’s full wraparound design. Illustrated with twelve tipped-in colour plates, seventeen full-page black-and-white drawings, and numerous illustrations throughout.

Copies in jacket are scarce. The dust jacket on this example is complete and unrestored, with only light wear to the edges and small repaired tears to the spine and rear fold, the panels bright and fresh. The black cloth beneath remains clean and gilt-bright, with minimal rubbing. Contents crisp, the plates fine and tissue guards intact.

Rackham’s interpretation of Poe marks one of the high points of 1930s book illustration—a mature, expressionist style perfectly matched to the gothic intensity of “The Tell-Tale Heart”, “The Pit and the Pendulum”, and “The Fall of the House of Usher”. The survival of the fragile jacket is what truly sets this copy apart: few were kept, and almost none remain as clean as this.

A complete, compelling example of one of the great illustrated books of the twentieth century, rarely encountered in such condition.