THE THREE IMPOSTERS
by [Horror]. MACHEN, Arthur
- Used
- Very Good
- first
- Condition
- Very Good
- Seller
-
New Haven, Connecticut, United States
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1923. First American edition. Very good. Octavo. Publisher's unfortunate choice of yellow cloth, paper spine label, decorative endpapers. 287,[3] pp., a great many unopened. Cloth is rather smudged, spine darkened with label chipped and also darkened, a testament to binding choice errors, else a very good copy without the dust jacket that might have saved it.
"The novel comprises several weird tales and culminates in a denouement of deadly horror, connected with a secret society devoted to debauched pagan rites. The three impostors of the title are members of this society who weave a web of deception in the streets of London-relating the aforementioned weird tales in the process-as they search for a missing Roman coin commemorating an infamous orgy by the Emperor Tiberius and close in on their prey: 'the young man with spectacles.'
Publisher John Lane of The Bodley Head, wary of the atmosphere following the trial of Oscar Wilde, asked Machen to expurgate his manuscript; Machen refused. Ultimately, however, Machen agreed to revise the description of the final scene of the book, in order to purge one word that Lane had found to be too explicit; the word was entrails" - synopsis from Wikipedia.
"The novel comprises several weird tales and culminates in a denouement of deadly horror, connected with a secret society devoted to debauched pagan rites. The three impostors of the title are members of this society who weave a web of deception in the streets of London-relating the aforementioned weird tales in the process-as they search for a missing Roman coin commemorating an infamous orgy by the Emperor Tiberius and close in on their prey: 'the young man with spectacles.'
Publisher John Lane of The Bodley Head, wary of the atmosphere following the trial of Oscar Wilde, asked Machen to expurgate his manuscript; Machen refused. Ultimately, however, Machen agreed to revise the description of the final scene of the book, in order to purge one word that Lane had found to be too explicit; the word was entrails" - synopsis from Wikipedia.
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Details
- Bookseller
- Second Wind Books LLC (US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 507
- Title
- THE THREE IMPOSTERS
- Author
- [Horror]. MACHEN, Arthur
- Book Condition
- Used - Very Good
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Edition
- First American edition
- Publisher
- Alfred A. Knopf
- Place of Publication
- New York
- Date Published
- 1923
- Keywords
- Horror, secret societies, debauchery, pagan rituals, orgy, entrails
Terms of Sale
Second Wind Books LLC
30 day return guarantee, with full refund including original shipping costs for up to 30 days after delivery if an item arrives misdescribed or damaged.
About the Seller
Second Wind Books LLC
Biblio member since 2022
New Haven, Connecticut
About Second Wind Books LLC
Second Wind Books is committed to offering important British and American first editions in the Modernist vein, with an emphasis on books about books, books by and about women and adjacent admirers. Literature, poetry, small and fine press, letters and manuscripts, original artwork, photographs, are what interests us most. Our founder began bookselling under the tutelage of a truly great bookman in 2006, and is now offering that learned expertise in her own shop. Interested in offers of literature from 1900 to 1950, either for sale or to evaluate.
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Spine Label
- The paper or leather descriptive tag attached to the spine of the book, most commonly providing the title and author of the...
- Cloth
- "Cloth-bound" generally refers to a hardcover book with cloth covering the outside of the book covers. The cloth is stretched...
- Unopened
- A state in which all or some of the pages of a book have not been separated from the adjacent pages, caused by a traditional...
- Jacket
- Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...
- Octavo
- Another of the terms referring to page or book size, octavo refers to a standard printer's sheet folded four times, producing...