The Ingoldsby Legends; or, Mirth and Marvels
London: Richard Bentley, 1870. Annotated Edition. Two octavos, xix, 428; xi, 467 pages, bound in period quarter leather over marbled boards. Spines lettered and decorated in gilt. Top edge gilt. Marbled endpapers. Illustrated with black-and-white plates. With the ownership bookplate of Samuel A. Crozer of the prominent Crozer family of Delaware County, Pennsylvania; an industrialist, philanthropist, and longtime board president of Crozer Theological Seminary. The Ingoldsby Legends; or, Mirth and Marvels is a celebrated collection of humorous, supernatural, and mock-Gothic tales and verse by Richard Harris Barham, first published under the pseudonym Thomas Ingoldsby. Blending ghost stories, legends, satire, parody, and comic verse, the work became one of the most popular Victorian literary miscellanies, admired for its lively rhymes, irreverent humor, and playful treatment of medieval, religious, and folkloric subjects. Full of witches, monks, knights, specters, miracles, and absurd misadventures, The Ingoldsby Legends reflects the 19th-century taste for antiquarian romance while also poking fun at it, making it an appealing title for collectors of Victorian literature, illustrated books, folklore, and comic writing. Rubbing and wear, rear hinge of volume one cracked through, rear hinge of volume two cracking, one plate in volume one detached and missing the top half, one plate in volume two detached, a few other pages loose, else in good condition. Item #373
Price: $120.00