The Conchologist's First Book: or, A System of Testaceous Malacology by POE, Edgar Allan - 1839

Philadelphia: Published for the Author by Haswell, Barrington, and Haswell, 1839. Some chipping and losses to spine, a little wear to boards, some scattered foxing and pale staining to upper sheets at end. 12mo (17 x 10.5 cm). 156 pages. 12 lithographed plates by P. S. Duval. Original dark green roan-backed pictorial boards. FIRST EDITION, Heartman and Canny's variant "b" (with uncolored plates), plate 3 in BAL's state "B" reading "Part of Shells" (no priority established). An adaptation of Thomas Brown's The Conchologist's Text-Book (Glasgow, 1833), edited by the financially troubled Poe, and published shortly after he moved to Philadelphia in 1838. Defending himself against accusations of plagiarism, Poe wrote to George W. Eveleth in February 1847: "I wrote it, in conjunction with Professor Thomas Wyatt, and Professor McMurtrie of Pha--my name being put to the work, as best known and most likely to aid its circulation. I wrote the Preface and Introduction, and translated from Cuvier, the accounts of the animals etc..." (see Ostrom, The Letters of Edgar Allan Poe [New York, 1966], no. 249, p. [343]). BAL 16131; Heartman & Canny, pp. 41-44; Norman 1720.