Nov 21, 2013 - Sale 2332

Sale 2332 - Lot 191

Price Realized: $ 2,125
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 3,000 - $ 4,000
LOVECRAFT'S LEGENDARY STILLBORN 'FIRST' BOOK LOVECRAFT, H.P. The Shunned House. 8vo, bound in plain brown card wrappers, stapled; short closed marginal tear on preface leaf; unopened but for last four pages, text clean. Paper watermarked "Canterbury Laid." Athol, Mass.: Published by W. Paul Cook, The Recluse Press, 1928
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Additional Details

first edition of the author's very rare first book. this copy presumed to be one of fifty unbound copies distributed by Arkham House (circa 1959); and subsequently privately bound in wrappers. The cancel copyright notice lists copyrights for 1936, 1937, 1939, and 1947 pasted over the original copyright notice on the verso of the title-page which reads "COPYRIGHT 1928 / By W. PAUL COOK." The notice is in the first state with the book and magazine titles set in bold face.

The complicated and somewhat obscure publishing history is thus: "Cook had wanted to publish SH in the first issue of The Recluse, but, perhaps because of space limitations, did not do so, and thus decided to print the story as a small book ... Cook printed approximately 300 copies in mid-1928 but bound none. In 1934 [R. H.] Barlow [Lovecraft's literary executor] received about 225 copies of the unbound sheets. It is rumored that he bound only eight copies: one was bound in natural leather and was given to Lovecraft in 1935. The other seven were bound in boards...These seven copies bear either a printed label ('Copyright 1935 / R. H. Barlow') pasted over the copyright notice (p. [2]), or the original copyright notice crossed out by hand to read: 'Copyright 1936 / R. H. Barlow'... It is believed that Barlow distributed some copies in wrappers and other copies in an unbound state, both bearing his printed copyright notice, but none has been seen by the compiler. Of the 225 copies, Barlow apparently distributed only about 50, having found some unusable ... Arkham House, when obtaining the remainder of the unbound sheets, bound or distributed 150 as follows: 50 unbound copies bear a printed label pasted over the original copyright notice; 100 are bound in black cloth bearing the printed copyright notice ... The former were distributed ca. 1959; the later ca. 1961. The Arkham House copyright label is in two states: the one for the unbound sheets prints book and magazine titles in boldface, that for the bound sheets prints these titles in italics" (Joshi, I-A-5). Laid-in is a mailing envelope (letter absent) from Lovecraft (Providence, July 31, 1931), Signed by him, addressed to his literary executor R.H. Barlow. Joshi, pp. 3-4; Currey, p. 325; Bleiler, p. 127; also see Jaffery, The Arkham House Companion, pp. 58-59.