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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a narration of the perilous sojourn therein of George Cowper, mariner, etc.
London, Henry J. Drane, [1897].
First edition. 8vo. Original pictorial light grey-green cloth.
Castaways on uncharted island fall under seemingly supernatural power of life and death held by the Mighty Justin, Lord of the Land of the Living Dead. In fact, the island is permeated by deadly volcanic gas for which Justin alone possesses an antidote that is administered only to loyal subjects. Bleiler p. 78.a
A good copy of a scarce book rarely found in decent condition.
Weird & Supernatural
First edition thus.
London. Reader's Library, [1934 according to COPAC but could be earlier]
Death by poisoning in a locked bedroom at Staups, an isolated manor house on the Yorkshire Moors. Weird elements, a supposedly cursed jewel and sacrificial knives looted from the temple of Aztec descendants living in Central America, Author’s first crime novel, published in the UK by Bles in 1927.
Weird & Supernatural
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.