Poe, Edgar Allan

Tales. New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1845.

8vo (7 1/2 x 4 3/4 ins; 186 x 122 mm). Black morocco extra gilt by the Club Bindery in 1899 (gilt-stamp signed and dated on front turn-in) preserving half-title and wrappers (except wrapper spine) top edge gilt, spine  with six ruled compartments red morocco gilt doublures, red watered silk rectos of endpapers with marbled versos and rectos of following blanks, original tan printed front and rear wrappers bound in; very minor crease to front wrapper outer margin not affecting rule, old repair to 30 mm closed tear to outer margin of rear wrapper, joints very slightly rubbed, old morocco and card slipcase.

first edition, first printing, first issue with Ludwig's imprint on the copyright page, the New York imprint, with the wrappers and advertisements matching those on First Printing copies listed in BAL.

Susan Tane (bookplate laid  in, purchased Christie's New York, 11 December 1990, lot 110 "The Property of a Gentleman")

BAL 16146; Grolier/American 55; Heartman & Canny pp.90-97; NYPL/Gordon 485; Queen's Quorum; Yale/Gimbel 61 Nevermore The Edgar Allan Poe Collecton of Susan Tane pp. 53-54 (this copy)

 "The tale proper, in my opinion, affords unquestionably the fairest field for the exercise of the loftiest talent" (Poe to Hawthorne).

"Here ... begins the detective story, with 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue', 'The Mystery of Marie Roget', and primus inter pares, the character of the amateur detective who triumphs over the blundering police, in 'The Purloined Letter'. The earlier Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque... contains a larger number of the Poe tales of horror, which are still the artistic standard for that school, but this volume adds... 'The Descent into the Maelstrom' and 'The Gold Bug'" (Grolier American).  

"... the first important book of detective stories, the first and greatest, the cornerstone of cornerstones...the highest of all high spots...contains for the first time in book form all three Dupin stories" (Queen's Quorum 1).

While the tales herein were not selected by Poe (and he expressed reservations about the editor "whose taste does not coincide with my own") they are in the end perhaps the single best representation of his broad range and lasting influence.  The 1845 Tales contains not only the invention of modern detective fiction, but also his supreme handling of pyschological horror, and contributions to both science fiction and the adventure story.

With the rare wrappers remarkably preserved.   A mere 6 copies of Tales in the full, complete wrappers are known (in various states of defect and repair).  Only two of these remain in private hand and one (the Behrman copy, sold Christie's New York, 12 June, 2008, $134,500) showed significant loss,chipping and repair. (The other, the Litchfield-Martin-Tane copy, sold Sotheby's New York, 20 October 2011, $314,500 has no major loss or repair.)  

With 1500 copies issued, Tales is occasionally obtainable rebound, but even so often without the half-title and advertisements present here, but we know of no other bound copies of the first edtion, first printing containing the wrappers and it is unlikely another will appear, especially with them in such remarkably fresh state (see also frontispiece illustration).