Barrie Before Peter Pan
BARRIE, James Matthew.
A set of seven first editions, and one first published edition, in uniform bindings. London, 1888–1896.
Eight works in ten vols, 8vo, with all half-titles, bound by Morrell in uniform early blue half morocco, with marbled paper sides, flat spines with a thistle pattern in gilt, silk placemarkers; lower and outer edges untrimmed, top edge gilt; occasional cuttings (contemporary reviews etc.) pasted to rear endpapers; bookplates of Francis James Griesbach (d. 1927); modern gift inscriptions to half-titles or titles.
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A set of seven first editions, and one first published edition, in uniform bindings.
An attractive set of J. M. Barrie’s early novels up to 1896, predominantly Scottish in setting.
Barrie’s first novel, Auld Licht Idylls (1888), had been based on the stories told by his mother about Kirremuir, a town he renamed ‘Thrums’. It was successful enough that he continued the series with When a Man’s Single (1888), A Window in Thrums (1889), and the three-decker The Little Minister (1891); his later Margaret Ogilvy (1896) was a more direct biography of his mother. Meanwhile he had published Lady Nicotine (1890, a humorous satire on smoking), but the privately printed Better Dead (1888) did not sell (it is here in the first published edition of 1891). Finally, with Sentimental Tommy (1896) we first see a character who clings to childhood fantasy, gesturing forward to Peter Pan, who would first make his appearance in 1902.
Margaret Ogilvy contains an advertisement for all the above works issued together as ‘The Thistle Edition’, in eight volumes, by Hodder – this never appeared, but a version was issued in New York by Scribner’s in 1896.
The set comprises:
i) Auld Licht Idylls. London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1888. Pp. [6], 250.
ii) When a Man’s Single. A Tale of Literary Life. London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1888. Pp. 289, [1], with half-title; toned throughout.
iii) A Window in Thrums. London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1889. Pp. 217, [1], with half-title.
iv) My Lady Nicotine. London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1890. Pp. [6], 6–265, [1], with half-title; toned throughout.
v) The Little Minister. London, Cassell & Company, 1891. Three vols, pp. [iii]–viii, 232; [iii]–viii, 239, [1]; [iii]–viii, 232, with half-titles.
vi) Better Dead. London, Swan Sonnenschein & Co., 1891. Pp. [6], 145, [1], with half-title and colour-printed frontispiece. First privately printed in 1888.
vii) Sentimental Tommy, the Story of his Boyhood. London, Cassell & Company, 1896. Pp. viii, 452, with half-title.
viii) Margaret Ogilvy by her Son. London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1896. Pp. viii, 204, with half-title and engraved frontispiece; title-page printed in red and black.