Tales of Mystery and Imagination. By Edgar Allan Poe. Illustrated by Harry Clarke. London: Harrap, 1919. First Edition. Pp, 382. Publisher’s full brown morocco, decorated in gilt. Rebacked, retaining part of original spine. A nice bright copy.

A  stunning version of Poe’s magical tales, accompanied by 24 full page black and white illustrations. Clarke had begun illustrating Poe’s hauntingly macabre otherworldly tales when he was twenty. Having just left the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art, he was formally commissioned by the London publisher, George Harrap, to prepare a set of 24 black-and-white full-page and 12 ‘ornamental’ text illustrations to Poe’s ‘Tales of Mystery and Imagination.’ These would appear in both a cloth edition and special limited signed edition in vellum in October 1919.

Such was the success of this publication that Harrap issued a second edition in 1923 with eight new colour plates tipped-in, several additional line decorations and a new cover and jacket. Several editions followed in both cloth and suede boards.