The Bayadere and Other Stories

New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons/Knickerbocker Press, 1894. First Edition. Octavo. A superb copy , 238pp. bound in full, rich red morocco with morocco doublures and silk in an edition of 12 specially bound by the Knickerbocker Press for the father of the author. Two letters laid in from Francis H. Saltus (author's father) to Edna M. Green. Francis Saltus Saltus (as he was known) led a gang of bohemians including his brother James and a Young James Huneker whose desire for absinthe was mixed with a devotion to the erotic and sensuous. (See Yungfrau, p. 19, Ophelia, p.31, and the Awakening, P. 230.) Laid in: From Francis H. Saltus (writing at the age 103) to Miss Greene who knew his sone though she was a member of the DAR. (1) 4 p.. ALS dated October 15, 1895. Refers to a waltz his son had composed in Paris in the earl 1870's and was performed there with him conducting an orchestra of 70 members. He notes of her many admirers but says none of can match his late son's literary and musical genius. (2). 2p. ALS (with original stmaped envelope) 1 1/4" closed tear at fold. He writes of her beauty and wonders why she has not since gotten married. (She did marry in 1905). The reference to Greenwich days is obscure and not futher identified. The young Saltus's influences were Poe, Gautier and Baudelaire but as Van Wyck Brooks remarked he may at one time have been among the most beautiful men but he "looked like a Greek god gone to ruin, partly as a result of absinthe which he drank to excess.