PAST LIVES OF OLD BOOKS And Other Essays.

First edition, first printing. Signed by the author. Publishers original cream cloth with illustration in purple to the upper board and titles in gilt to the upper board and spine, in dustwrapper. Purple silk bookmark. Illustrated with 87 black-and-white photographs taken by the author. A fine copy, the binding square and firm, contents clean throughout and without previous owners' inscriptions or stamps. Without fading, loss or tears. Complete with original dustwrapper, which has a stain to the upper left edge of the front panel and is otherwise without fading, loss or tears. Not price clipped (£35.00 to the front flap).

Issued in a limited edition of 300 copies. Signed by Ray Russell in black ink to the title page. A fascinating collection of 36 essays discussing a range of authors from Arthur Machen to Donna Tartt, from Robert Aickman to Alain-Fournier, and from Denton Welch to Katherine Burdekin, taking in classic supernatural fiction, erotic decadence, biographical and dystopian fiction, though to poetry, bibliography and reference works. Russell also deals with books themselves as physical objects to be collected and whose individual histories may be speculated upon. There are essays on book collecting, bookshops, bookdealers and bibliographers, through to the tiny booksellers' labels that can often be found stuck in the front of older books.