Maggs Bros.

This issue not noted by Blanck although there are a good dozen reported by OCLC - it appears to be printed from the plates of his first issue (evidenced by the blank p 212 in volume 2) bound in one volume with a new title page. Described by Clark and Frazer A15.1.d as “Fourth Printing”. A very good copy, with very modest wear to the extremities of the binding, spine a fraction faded, and just a little generally shabby. The joints are completely sound, and it has been lightly read, if at all. “The Old Manse” of the title is Hawthorne’s home in Concord, Massachusetts, where Emerson was among his neighbours. Melville reviewed this collection of allegorical short stories memorably: “This black conceit pervades him through and through. You may be witched by his sunlight,—transported by the bright gildings in the skies he builds over you; but there is the blackness of darkness beyond; and even his bright gildings but fringe and play upon the edges of thunder-clouds.”