James, Henry | A beautifully bound set of a Henry James masterpiece

The Passion of American Collectors: Property of Barbara and Ira Lipman

James, Henry

The Portrait of a Lady. London: Macmillan and Co., 1881

8vo (177 x 122 mm). Bound with the terminal blank in the second volume, but without that in the first, and retaining the publisher's catalogue dated April 1881 in the third. Full royal blue polished calf, spines gilt in six compartments with red morocco lettering pieces, edges gilt, gilt dentelles, marbled endpapers, by Bayntun for Sotheran. Fleece-lined buckram slipcase.

First edition, preceding the U.S. edition by eight days. One of 750 sets.

That the terminal catalogue in this set predates publication by six months is a consequence of the publisher's binder utilizing a number of copies of that catalogue after the supply at hand of the catalogue dated December ran out.

"This is generally acknowledged as the masterpiece of the highly productive period immediately following James's adoption of England as his instinctive homeland, and it supplies laymen with a representative sample of the work of this novelists' novelist" (Grolier American)

REFERENCE

BAL 10553; Connolly, Modern Movement 1; Edel & Laurence A16a; Grolier American 85; Sadleir 1281