8vo; pp. [frontis. portrait], viii, 676, 40 (ads).

A good copy in original gilt-decorated green cloth; somewhat shaken, with wear to the top and tail of the spine and some foxing to the frontispiece portrait and specimen of Poe's handwriting (plate at p.40). An interesting object in terms of book production as well: the gatherings are here held with three staples, generally in fairly good condition given their age, though with some inevitable rusting, not affecting the book in any significant way.

All of Poe's classic works in one volume, including the poems ‘The Raven’ and ‘Annabel Lee’, the stories ‘The Gold Bug’ and ‘Murders in the Rue Morgue’, and the essays on Dickens, Hawthorne, Elizabeth Barrett Browning et al., as well as ‘The Philosophy of Composition’ and ‘The Poetic Principle’. Baudelaire'‘s essay is significant in its own right: in Poe the French writer found a kindred spirit, and Baudelaire's ‘discovery’ of this affinity had a profound effect on his career.

This copy is bound with later publisher's ads (August 1879), and as with other later issues that we have consulted contains only the portrait frontispiece and specimen of Poe's handwriting (which is to say, it is complete as issued).