Poe, Edgar Allan / Clarke, Harry.

Tales of Mystery and Imagination. Illustrated by Harry Clarke. [With eight tipped-in-plates in colour, 24 black-and-white illustrations and several illustrations throughout the text].

Fourth Edition of the 1919 publication. London / Bombay / Sydney, George G. Harrap & Co., 1928. 4°. (21.5 cm wide x 27.7 cm high). 381 pages with all the stunning colour-plates and black-and-white-plates in place but page 15/16 and the relevant illustration cleanly detached. Hardcover with restored original dustjacket / Original full cloth-binding with gilt lettering/illustrated spine. Top edge gilt. A stunning, absolutely unusually firm and clean binding, nearly with no flaws, very unusual for the original 1928-edition. Tight and clean example of one of the most beautiful macabre art nouveau-publications. All illustrations by Harry Clarke in excellent condition. The restored dustjacket in protective Mylar. When we speak of “restored” we mean in this case parts of the original dustjacket’s spine and frontcover were pasted on black paper in style of the time. The absolutely best example of this work we ever handled, despite the detached layer of pages.

Provenance: From the library of British Art Collectors Sir Alan Rae Smith & his wife Mabel.
With their beautiful bookplate to the front pastedown.


Harry Clarke (March 17, 1889–1931) was an Irish stained glass artist and book illustrator. Born in Dublin, he was a leading figure in the Irish Arts and Crafts Movement.
The son of a craftsman, Joshua Clarke, Clarke the younger was exposed to art (and in particular Art Nouveau) at an early age. He went to school in Belvedere College in Dublin. By his late teens, he was studying stained glass at the Dublin Art School. While there his The Consecration of St. Mel, Bishop of Longford, by St. Patrick won the gold medal for stained glass work in the 1910 Board of Education National Competition.
Completing his education in his main field, Clarke travelled to London, where he sought employment as a book illustrator. Picked up by London publisher Harrap, he started with two commissions which were never completed: Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (his work on which was destroyed during the 1916 Easter Rising) and an illustrated edition of Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock.
Difficulties with these projects made Hans Christian Andersen’s Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen his first printed work, however, in 1916—a title that included 16 colour plates and more than 24 monotone illustrations. This was closely followed by an illustrations for an edition of Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales of Mystery and Imagination: the first version of that title was restricted to monotone illustrations, while a second iteration with 8 colour plates and more than 24 monotone images was published in 1923.
The latter of these made his reputation as a book illustrator (this was during the golden age of gift-book illustration in the first quarter of the twentieth century: Clarke’s work can be compared to that of Aubrey Beardsley, Kay Nielsen, and Edmund Dulac). It was followed by editions of The Years at the Spring, containing 12 colour plates and more than 14 monotone images; (Lettice D’O. Walters, ed., 1920), Charles Perrault’s Fairy Tales of Perrault, and Goethe’s Faust, containing 8 colour plates and more than 70 monotone and duotone images (New York: Hartsdale House,1925). The last of these is perhaps his most famous work, and prefigures the disturbing imagery of 1960s psychedelia.
Two of his most sought-after titles include promotional booklets for Jameson Irish Whiskey: A History of a Great House (1924, and subsequent reprints) and Elixir of Life (1925), which was written by Geofrey Warren.
His final book was Selected Poems of Algernon Charles Swinburne, which was published in 1928. In the meantime, he had also been working hard in stained glass, producing more than 130 windows, he and his brother, Walter, having taken over his father’s studio after his death in 1921. (Wikipedia)

• Keywords: American Literature – Rare · Art Deco · Art Nouveau · Catalogue Irish History Seven – Irish Literature – Poetry – Music – Theatre · Catalogue No.10 – International Literature · Fantasy · Harry Clarke · Horror · Illustrated Books · Illustrated Books Rare · Illustrierte Bücher · Irish Illustrator Harry Clarke
• Language: English
• Inventory Number: 20118AB

EUR 380,--