Metcalfe (John) The Smoking Leg
£350
London, Jarrolds, 1927.
An early edition of Metcalfe’s first published book, a collection of macabre tales, including the excellent ‘Paper WIndmills’.
5th thousand on DW and 3rd impression March 1927. Priced at 3/6 on spine. Original cloth, dust-jacket.
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Rowland (John, editor) Path and Pavement: Twenty New Tales of Britain.
London, Eric Gaunt, 1937
First edition. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, correctly priced at 7s 6d on front flap.
Rare anthology of short stories several of which are fantasy including:
'Ritual' by Arthur Machen in which a bunch of London boys reproduce an African native ritual resulting in the death by suggestion of one of their number.
Ghost stories by Kenneth Hare and Richard Middleton
'Smoking the Dragon' by Frederick Carter, a fantasy about a fire-breathing monster and The Third Gift', a weird horror story of a pool and its legends.
Appears to be very elusive. No copies of any kind online at time of writing.
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First edition.
London. Grant Richards, 1923
A lost race novel in which a lost heiress takes over an African tribe. Very scarce in wrapper.
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1st printing contained within Volume 3 of Hogg’s Weekly Instructor (pages 184-189).
London, Hogg's Weekly Instructor, 1846
The volume contains many articles, stories and poems as was the nature of the periodical but primarily it is the inclusion of the important first printing of Catherine Crowe's 'The Story of a Weir-Wolf' that makes this desirable. It is a 'Witch Trial' story of the sufferings of a maiden who is wrongly accused of Lycanthropy.
This story is arguably wrote the first werewolf short story by a female. It was reprinted in The Best Werewolf Short Stories 1800-1849: A Classic Werewolf Anthology but its first appearance was in this volume.
Two years after “A Story of a Weir-Wolf” was published Crowe published a collection she titled “The Night-Side of Nature, or Ghosts and Ghost-seers.”
An attractive addition to any collection of gothic and/or supernatural fiction.