Heritage Press – Tales of Mystery and Imagination by Edgar Allan Poe (1941)
July 22, 2013 Comments Off on Heritage Press – Tales of Mystery and Imagination by Edgar Allan Poe (1941)
Tales of Mystery and Imagination by Edgar Allan Poe (1941)
Sandglass Number III:23
Artwork: Aquatints by William Sharp
Introduced by Vincent Starrett
Reprint of LEC #125, 12th Series, V. 7 in 1941
Click images for larger views.
Front Binding – Two previously featured icons return to the Macy blog today: the author, Edgar Allan Poe, and the artist, William Sharp. We last saw Poe in the exquisite Hugo Steiner-Prag illustrated Poems; I detail out his LEC/HP career in that particular post. Here we have what many would consider his most enduring legacy to literature; his horror-fueled short stories. Many of the classics are included here: “The Fall of the House of Usher”, “The Black Cat”, “The Gold-Bug”, “The Pit and the Pendulum”, “The Tell-Tale Heart”, “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”, “The Masque of the Red Death”, and plenty more. The marbled boards are perfect too; the coloring is ghastly!
William Sharp, last spotted doing the set of Samuel Pepys’ Diary, gleefully made his debut for the George Macy Company rendering these chilling tales in 1941. He definitely shows some versatility in his style; his later, more restrained pen drawings for Pepys and Rousseau’s Confessions greatly contrast against these more grisly interpretations of Poe’s imaginative narratives. Sharp provided the LEC edition of the book aquatint illustrations, which the Sandglass goes into great detail about. To summarize, the original artwork was done via engraving on a specifically prepared copper plate, and is then dipped in nitric acid to create the print in a watercolor-esque fashion. Photogravures of the originals were utilized for the Heritage edition.
Production details: the designer is unstated. Original Old Style serves as the main text, with English Caslon embellishments and Sylvan decorations. The red ink scattered throughout is called English vermillion. Printing was done by the Riverside Press on Crocker-Burbank Company paper (dubbed “Saturn” paper here). The stunning boards are of the Putois marbled paper family. The spine is gold-stamped.
Title Page – Vincent Starrett is the Introductory man for this set of stories. The use of red ink throughout the text is quite lovely.
Examples of the Illustrations by Sharp (right click and open in new tab for full size):
Personal Notes – This book came from Carpe Diem Rare Books on my first visit there a few years ago. I paid $15 for it, which is a little more than I usually pay for Heritage titles, but it’s Edgar Allan Poe’s brilliant tales! My wife is a big fan of his work, and I wanted to get a nicer edition of the tales than she previously had (which this fits the bill quite nicely). The next book on my Non-Macy tab is the Fritz Eichenberg illustrated Tales; look forward to that!
Sandglass (right click and select Open in New Tab to see full size):