The Poems and Stories of Fitz-James O'Brien

by William Winter (ed.) 

Boston:  James R. Osgood and Company, 1881.

Hardback is overall in VERY GOOD condition.

• Brown cloth covers show commensurate wear with blind tooled borders. 
• Boards show some scuffing, rumpling, and edgewear.  Corners are bumped and worn, with exposed board.  Please see photos for details of condition and shamrock decorative motif.
• Binding is secure.  
• Endpapers show splits where boards meet text block.  Please see photographs for details of condition.  
• Frontispiece is present and is lightly toned, with intact tissue guard
• Illustrations are bright and clear.  
• Interior is age-toned, exhibits minimal signs of wear.  
• Inside pages are free of writing and intentional marks. 
• Text block edges have a few marks.   
• PS2022.0413

485 pages. 5.25 x 7.5 inches.

Fitz-James O'Brien (1826-1862) was born in County Cork, Ireland, of an Anglo-Irish family.  Following a failed literary business venture, O'Brien moved to New York in 1852 where he became known as a Bohemian, an active member of Pfaff's Cellar literary circle. He wrote poetry, short stories, and plays for many publications, notably Harper's. A devotee of Edgar Allan Poe, O'Brien explored themes of the supernatural in his own writing.

With the outbreak of the Civil War, O'Brien enlisted in the Union Army, writing patriotic verse and participating in recruitment efforts. He was shot while on a scouting mission in West Virginia, and died of complications to the wound.

O'Brien is known most as a poet and for his short stories; in recent years those of his stories with supernatural and science fiction elements have gained him more attention. According to the Science Fiction Encyclopedia, his finest work is The Diamond Lens, a long, precisely detailed story about a Scientist who invents a supermicroscope and is then consumed by his morbid love for a beautiful woman he perceives living in an infinitesimal world inside a drop of water.

This volume comprises a collection of Fitz-James O'Brien's work, published posthumously.  Selected and edited by William Winter, it includes a biographical sketch of O'Brien. 

Printed in Cambridge (Mass.) at University Press by John Wilson and Son.  

AS IS! Please see photos. More photos available upon request.

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