Watch and Ward
Boston: Houghton, Osgood and Company, 1878. First edition. Original cloth over boards. Eighteenmo. 219 pages. Near fine, with a few light extremity rubs. Spine a bit cocked. Green cloth over boards stamped in gilt and blind, tan endpapers, all textblock edges red.
Henry James's first novel, originally published serially in the Atlantic Monthly in 1871, and here for the first time in book form.
The simple and melodramatic plot caused James to essentially disown this work, instead referring to the far more substantial "Roderick Hudson" as his first novel as his career took off.
This is one of the 1,000 copies in the first printing of May 29, 1878, in bright green cloth (Edel, binding "a").
Ref. EDEL and LAWRENCE, A6.
Item #1462
Price: $500