Author: Edgar Allan Poe. (illustrated by Arthur Rackham).
Title: Tales of Mystery and Imagination.
Publisher: Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott Company, 1935. First American Edition, illustrated by Rackham.
Language: Text in English.
Size: 10 x 8 inches. 
Pages: 317 pages. 
Binding: Attractive and very good striking and very well-preserved original red cloth binding with elaborate gilt-stamped skeleton illustration to front board and gilt titles to spine (hinges fine, overall slightly worn and scuffed - as shown) under a protective removable mylar cover. Top edge stained red, original patterned endpapers featuring Rackham’s macabre skeletal forest design.
Content: Very good content (bright, tight and clean, rare light foxing - as shown, neat early ownership inscription and small ink drawing on half-title - as shown). An attractive and solid example.
Illustrations: Magnificently illustrated with 12 colour plates by Arthur Rackham, each with a captioned tissue guard, along with numerous dramatic in-text line drawings, vignettes, and decorative motifs throughout. Illustrations complete, vivid, and highly expressive.

Estimate: (USD 450 - USD 800)

The book: A powerful illustrated edition of Tales of Mystery and Imagination, presenting some of Poe’s most influential and chilling stories, including “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Pit and the Pendulum,” “The Masque of the Red Death,” and “The Fall of the House of Usher.” Rackham’s haunting visual interpretations — grotesque, spectral, and psychologically intense — elevate Poe’s gothic atmosphere, making this edition one of the finest artistic collaborations in 20th-century illustrated literature.

The author: Edgar Allan Poe (19 January 1809 – 7 October 1849) was an American poet, critic, and master of the macabre. His groundbreaking contributions to gothic fiction, psychological horror, and detective narrative influenced generations of writers including Baudelaire, Dostoevsky, Conan Doyle, Borges, Lovecraft, Nabokov, Bradbury, and Stephen King. His exploration of madness, mortality, obsession, and imagination remains foundational to modern literature.

The illustrator: Arthur Rackham (19 September 1867 – 6 September 1939) was one of the greatest Golden Age illustrators, celebrated for his eerie line work, fantastical visual imagination, and ability to merge beauty with dread. His illustrations for Poe — among the darkest and most dramatic of his career — are widely regarded as masterpieces of gothic book art.