Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Price: US$7500.00 + shipping
Description: First edition, first issue with the publication date on the upper wrapper altered by hand of Stevenson's classic book. Octavo, original wrappers, advertisements. In very good condition. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell and chemise box. First editions in the original wrappers are rare. "If [Bram Stoker's] Dracula leaves one with the sensation of having been struck down by a massive, 400-page wall of horror, then Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is like the sudden, mortal jab of an ice pick" (Stephen King). Leaping to life out of a "fine bogey dream" from which the author's wife abruptly awakened him, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde proved "immediately and lastingly Stevenson's most famous story" (Baugh et al., 1499). "Published as a 'shilling shocker,' a form at that time in fashion, it became instantly popular; was quoted from a thousand pulpits; was translated into German, French and Danish; and the names of its two chief characters have passed into the common stock of proverbial allusion" (DNB). "It is a Faustian moral fable which takes the form of a tale of mystery and horror⦠[It] is the prototype of all stories of multiple personality, transformation and possession⦠The psychological power of the writing, including Jekyll's agonies, is patent" (Clute & Nicholls, 1165). "When we thrill to the shock and horror of the story, I think it is because we all, at least to some degree, have been torn by [Jekyll's] internal conflict. When we recoil in terror from the selfish savagery of Mr. Hyde, I think it is because we fear our own secret selves" (Jack Williamson). It is the basis for many adaptations to the screen, most notably in 1931 starring Fredric March and in 1941 featuring Spencer Tracy, Ingrid Bergman, and Lana Turner.
Seller: Raptis Rare Books, Palm Beach, FL, U.S.A.
Price: US$7500.00 + shipping
Description: First English edition, issue with the "6" in the date on upper wrapper changed by hand from "5". Half-title with list of works on verso, ads for Longman's Magazine on inner front wrapper, inner back wrapper advertising novels by Whyte-Melville, outer back wrapper advertising The Dynamiter and two works by Bret Harte. 1 vols. 8vo. A Masterpiece of Horror. An attractive copy of this classic of English literature, and one of the greatest of all masterpieces of psychological and moral horror. It is ". a Faustian moral fable which takes the form of a tale of mystery and horror. It precedes Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), which in some respects resembles it, by five years, and is the prototype of all stories of multiple personality, transformation and possession; in some respects it is also a tale of drug dependency." (Clute and Nicholls, eds., The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, 1993, p. 1165). Beinecke I:349 Original wrappers. Soiled, small chip from upper inner edge, repair to outer corner of upper wrapper, several repairs to spine; still, a very good copy of a fragile rarity Half-title with list of works on verso, ads for Longman's Magazine on inner front wrapper, inner back wrapper advertising novels by Whyte-Melville, outer back wrapper advertising The Dynamiter and two works by Bret Harte. 1 vols. 8vo First English edition, issue with the "6" in the date on upper wrapper changed by hand from "5".
Seller: James Cummins Bookseller, ABAA, New York, NY, U.S.A.
Price: US$53034.75 + shipping
Description: 8vo. (8), 141, (3) pp. With one page of advertisements at rear as issued. Original fawn-coloured wrappers lettered in red and blue. Housed in a custom red cloth clamshell case. A literary touchstone of Faustian horror for the industrial age: presentation copy of the first English edition, inscribed on both the cover and the title-page, to "William Slafford, with the Author's Compliments". - "The date upon the front cover was originally 1885, but the last figure was altered by the pen into 6. It had been intended to publish the book in December 1886, 'but when it was ready the bookstalls were already full of Christmas numbers, etc., and the trade would not look at it' (Mr. Charles Longman in Balfour's Life, ii. 14). The publication was therefore postponed till January 1886. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, issued an edition dated 1886" (Prideaux). - Spine and corners creased, lower spine rubbed, light soiling and a faint blindstamp to rear wrapper, binding a touch delicate. In all a fine copy. - Prideaux 17.
Seller: Antiquariat INLIBRIS Gilhofer Nfg. GmbH, Vienna, A, Austria