Between the Covers

Hardcover. Second edition, first issue. Quarto. 190pp., plus four pages of ads. Parchment over beveled boards soiled, particularly at the edges, a few spots to the frontispiece tissue guard and with the paper of the front hinge split (but remarkably sound), suggesting it may have been mended, a good copy. Stoker's first book. This copy is Inscribed by the author on the half-title: "Richard Butler from Bram Stoker 1887." At that time Butler was the editor of *The Referee*, a Sunday newspaper that combined coverage of two unlikely subjects: sports and theatre. In an interesting coincidence, Butler, writing as Richard Henry (with co-writer Henry Chance Newton), penned a Christmas burlesque for the 1887 holiday season entitled *Frankenstein, or The Vampire's Victim*. The production was, depending on the source, either a disaster that closed after one week or a hit that stretched into the next year. Either way it was during at this time that Stoker, then a theatrical manager and friend of Butler, likely signed this copy of his first book. An interesting association.

Item #541859