SWORDS IN THE MIST. The Chronicles of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, Volume Three.

First edition with these illustrations. Limited edition. Signed by the author of the introduction and the illustrator. Publisher's original black cloth with gilt and red titles to the spine, with pictorial onlay to the upper board, in the Grant Griffin wraparound-illustrated dustwrapper. Housed in the black and dark brown cloth slipcase, with gilt and red titles to the backstrip. Top edge dark brown. Burgundy satin bookmark. Illustrated endpapers. With a colour frontispiece and six colour plates by Grant Griffin, and a black and white photograph of the author to the rear. An excellent fine copy, the binding square and firm, the cloth bright and fresh. The contents are clean throughout, and without previous owners' inscriptions or stamps. Complete in the very lightly rubbed dustwrapper which remains without fading, loss or tears. Housed in the fine, structurally sound slipcase that has some light marks to the sides.

Issued in a deluxe limited edition of just 50 copies, from which this example is numbered 48 and signed by the illustrator Grant Griffin and the author of the introduction Tim Powers in black ink on the tissue-guarded colophon. A facsimile of Fritz Leiber's signature is printed in black. Volume three of 'The Chronicles of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser', the multi-award winning author Fritz Leiber's classic sword and sorcery fantasy series about the adventures of two unlikely heroes and friends, the gargantuan barbarian Fafhrd and the diminutive thief Gray Mouser. The series is made up of novellas and vignettes that were first published in magazines (most frequently in 'Fantastic' magazine) before being collected into the 'Swords' series in book form. Leiber is considered a master of the sword and sorcery genre and popularized the term himself in 1961. A 'Bonus Content' section at the rear contains two essays by Leiber and two letters to Leiber from H. P. Lovecraft.