Beckford, William
Vathek : an Arabian tale … Edited by Richard Garnett, LL.D. With notes by Samuel Henley, sand etchings by Herbert Nye.
London, Lawrence & Bullen 1893.
Full Description
8vo. (8)(including preliminary blank leaf) + xxx + (2) + 253 + (1)pp, 8 etched plates. Publisher’s cloth, with gilt-stamped decoration on upper cover, top edge gilt, rebacked with recent morocco spine. A little spotting (as always, due to the nature of the paper stock), but a good, fresh, untrimmed copy, partly unopened towards end of volume. One of 600 numbered copies thus (450 for England, 150 for the US), although there were also 70 copies printed on Japanese vellum.
The text is based on that of the 1823 London English-language edition of Vathek, with the addition of the notes by Samuel Henley as amplified by Beckford for the 1834 edition. The volume’s editor Richard Garnett (1835-1906), Keeper of Printed Books at the British Museum, contributes an introduction in which he discusses the respective merits and publishing history of the original Lausanne, Paris and London editions of Vathek. The delicate etched plates are good examples of the work of the book illustrator Herbert Nye. Millington p.260.