Books

London: Macmillan and Co., 1886. First edition in book form of one of James's "three formidable novels" published in the 1880s along with The Bostonians and The Tragic Muse. Octavo, three volumes, original publisher's cloth with gilt titles to the spine, half-titles, 2 pages of advertisements at rear of vols. II and III. From the library of Barton Currie with his bookplate to the pastedown and later Maurice Sendak, although not marked. American journalist, author, and book collector Barton Currie contributed hundreds of articles and stories for publications such as New York Evening World, New York Evening Sun, Harper's Weekly and Good Housekeeping in the early part of the 20th century. Currie wrote from personal experience of the effect of bibliomania on the collector in his memoir Fishers of Books (1931), "The first symptom of bibliomania manifests itself by producing a form of somnambulism. You come out of a bookshop carrying a first edition of something or other. You cannot…

The Princess Casamassima is a novel by Henry James, first published as a serial in The Atlantic Monthly in 1885-1886 and then as a book in 1886. The novel is a story about London bookbinder Hyacinth Robinson, who becomes involved in radical politics and a terrorist assassination plot. The book combines themes of political activism and social reform with James's characteristic psychological insight.