THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY. In Three Volumes

1882. [a handsome set] London: Macmillan and Co., 1882. 24 pp Vol III ads dated Dec 1881. Original dark blue-green cloth decorated in black.

First Edition, second impression, of James's best-known work, the account of Isabel Archer and her many suitors -- of varying ages, varying wealth, and varying ethics. THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY is far and away Henry James's most sought-after title... and a major title of 19th Century literature. The first impression was dated 1881 on the title pages, was published in three volumes in November 1881, and consisted of 750 copies; this second impression (not so stated) is dated 1882 on the title pages, was published (truncated) in January 1882, and consisted of only 250 copies (some of these 250 copies were issued in three volumes in the same cloth as the first impression, while some were issued three-volumes-in-one in red cloth); Macmillan next published a one-volume "New Edition," in June 1882, consisting of 1000 copies. This copy is in three separate volumes, which is to say in the same cloth binding as the first impression. Condition is bright and close to fine (volumes slightly aslant as usual, faint discoloration of one front cover, some very minor cracking of some of the original delicate chocolate-brown endpapers). The 1881 first impression, essentially identical to this set except for the date on the title pages, would today bring $35,000-$50,000 in this condition -- so this set is a possibility for someone wanting a copy of James's big title in the same binding, at a far lower price. Supino 16.2.0; Edel & Laurence A16a; Blanck 10553. Provenance: 1913-dated armorial bookplates (one upside-down on a rear paste-down) of Scofield Thayer (1889-1982) -- the wealthy American poet and publisher. In 1919 he co-purchased and revived The Dial, the literary magazine actually begun by Ralph Waldo Emerson in 1840. As the pioneering editor, in the 1920s Thayer published the works of many emerging modernist American and European writers such as Eliot, Pound and cummings; he stepped down in 1926, and lived out the remaining 56 years of his life in seclusion, at times battling the effects of paranoid schizophrenia. (Inventory #: 15678)