Supernatural tales
HARTLEY, L.P. Night Fears. London: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1924.
8vo., green publisher's cloth, titled in gilt to upper board; gilt lettering to spine; pp. [viii], 220, [iv]; outer edges untrimmed; a very good example, sunned to edges and spine with light compression; endpapers browned and offset, with light spotting throughout, particularly prevalent on the prelims.
First edition of Hartley's first book, a collection of short stories on the theme of the supernatural. This copy inscribed by the author to the ffep: "To Oliver from Leslie with my love" and dated in the year of publication, June 1924. The title story follows a nightwatchman in his new role, and the characters he encounters as part of his rounds.
Comprising 17 stories, some of which were originally printed in periodicals such as The London Mercury and The Oxford Outlook, the latter at which Hartley had been the editor. Perhaps now best known for his 1953 novel The GO-Between, Hartley's earliest influences came from writers such as Edgar Allen Poe, and although he wrote his first story at the tender age of 11, he struggled for much of his early life to realise his dream of becoming an author. It was not until 1924 that he met Constant Huntington of G. P. Putnam, who published this, his first volume, as well as his novella Simonetta Perkins in 1925. Night Fears was relatively unsuccessful, earning him no money. One particular reviewever wrote of his work that "his examination of the disturbed mental states of his characters is topnotch, and his horror stories can seem to be so unique as to be unclassifiable. He was stylistically without a peer" (Nevins, p. 53).
A lovely copy, offered here for sale one hundred years after it was first published.
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