BROWN, Oliver Madox (1855-1874). The Dwale Bluth, Hebditch’s Legacy, and Other Literary Remains of… Edited by William M. Rossett and F. Hueffer. London: Tinsley Brothers, 1876.
2 volumes, 8vo. Etched frontispiece portraits in both volumes by Ford Madox Brown (some spotting to plates). Original rose cloth, gilt-lettered spines (spines sunned, some wear at ends and corners, front free endpaper removed in Vol. I); folding cloth chemise and slipcase. Provenance: A.H. Christie (armorial bookplate); Kenneth A. Lohf (book label), see his sale at Christie’s New York, 20 November 1992.
FIRST AND ONLY EDITION of Brown’s Remains. Widely considered a prodigy, his death from blood poisoning at the age of nineteen devastated his father, pre-Raphaelite artist, Ford Madox Brown (1821-93), who always kept a spare room of Oliver’s possessions wherever he lived. As well as the title stories, the 1876 collection includes The Yeth-Hounds, based on a Devon legend about phantom huntsmen, and The Last Story, dictated on the author's deathbed. Other stories include the unfinished The Dwale Bluth which is a story of a woman’s obsession with belladonna. “As the first effort of a seventeen-year-old writer, it is quite unbelievable” (Wolff, Strange Stories, p. 40). Wolff, I:880 (“RARE”). A Horowitz high spot.