TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY IN THE CEVENNES

1879. Crane, Walter. Second Edition. London: C. Kegan Paul & Co., 1879. 1 page preliminary undated ads. Original green-blue cloth pictorially decorated in gilt, beveled.

First Edition, second printing, of Stevenson's third book, following AN INLAND VOYAGE and EDINBURGH PICTURESQUE NOTES; like the former two, this is something of a travelogue, describing his 1878 walking tour in the Cevennes region of southern France. Stevenson took this trip just after the woman he loved (and eventually would marry) left the Continent with her two children to rejoin her husband in San Francisco. For this trip the forlorn Stevenson collaborated with another female, named Modestine -- a donkey. As with AN INLAND VOYAGE, included is a frontispiece by Walter Crane. This second printing reads "Second Edition" both at the foot of the spine and on the title page; otherwise it is essentially the same as the first (which consisted of only 750 copies). There was also a third printing, still reading "Second Edition" on its title page, in a modified binding. This is a bright, near-fine copy -- with very minor rubbing at the extremities, a little faint speckling of the cloth, and slight cracking of the rear endpaper; the volume remains tight even though it was part of the brief ill-fated experiment of binding with staples rather than with string. Beinecke 38; see Prideaux p. 8 (a different binding); not cited in Princeton 8.