Rare variant binding. An attractive example of this important edition, designed and featuring suitably dark art nouveau illustrations by Laurence Housman, rare in this condition. The illustrations clearly show the influence of the story's first illustrator, the author's brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

This copy is in a variant, off-white binding, as opposed to the normal green, and has chocolate brown endpapers, as opposed to the usual white. We could find no records of this variant at auction.

First Housman edition; 12mo in sixes; half-title, pictorial title, vignettes and full-page illustrations by Housman, ownership inscription on front free endpaper; publisher's off-white cloth with extensive gilt decoration to covers, plain rule compartments to spine, a little spotting, spine slightly darkened, overall a very good copy.