Books

First separate issue; the smaller trimmed variant with the blank leaf bound at rear. Originally printed in the To-Day journal between April 1885 and March 1886, this edition was printed from the corrected and revised stereos of the original setting for the journal. There is a second larger, variant issue, with the preliminary blank leaf bound at the beginning. Shaw explains the variant this way: "The size of the bigger copies is due to the fact that they reproduced not only the type but the format of To-day. But the booksellers objected that in this form it occupied too much room to be displayed on their stalls and counters. It was probably cut down as far as the margins would allow to meet this objection". Octavo. Original blue wrappers, titles to front cover in red and black. Housed in a dark green cloth chemise in green crushed morocco pull-off case, titles to spine gilt. Slight chipping to spine ends, small loss to foot of front cover at spine, small mark to front cover, foxing to covers, edges, prelims and endmatter, a very good copy in the case with faded spine and slight rubbing to extremities. Laurence A3a.