Tales of Mystery and Imagination by Poe Allan; Edgar; Clarke, Harry, - 1923

First US trade edition (as opposed to the stated limited edition) of the color plate version of The Clarke-illustrated Tales of Mystery and Imagination. A reprint of this edition was published through the 1930s. Text block is top-stained, in black of course. Large, weighty, imposingly black volume with gilt text and art on the spine and a paste-down on the front cover. Top-stained in black with the other edges deckled. Features 32 full page plates, 8 in full color and tipped-in. Tight, solid, square binding with some wear at top spine and some fading on the still-bright spine gilt. The front paste down is clean and as issued. Inside, the book is sharp and nice with a former owner's name (Priscilla Sanders) in genuinely spooky old cursive. Priscilla put penciled check marks in the Table of Contents showing that she liked, or at least read, almost all the poems in the book. These are instantly erasable, but left intact because I feel it's none of my business. All plates are present and as-issued with a crease at the lower right of the frontis and another very minor one at the left lower corner of the color plate for the poem Ligeia, which Priscilla didn't care for. All else is as it came from the publisher.