THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII Bulwer-Lytton, Sir Edward [Robert], Bart Literature

Second Copyright Edition. First published in 1834, Bulwer-Lytton's volcanic melodrama was among the most popular novels of the 19th century. 12mo: xii, 444 pp. with a frontispiece and 28 full-page plates, all mounted original albumen photographs. In the publisher's ivory vellum binding, with beveled boards; red hand-ruled and gilt-stamped ruled borders and frame with corner ornaments, gray, black, and gold hand-painted lobed frame with gilt-stamped ornaments on the front panel; gilt-stamped ruled and ornamental bands with ornamental pattern compartments, and titling on the spine; and a repetition of the front panel on the rear, except for the lobed frame. All edges stained red, with buff endpapers printed in forest green with a floral ornamental pattern on an orange-printed vertical field and a red silk ribbon. Pencil gift inscription and a minor crease to the prefartory blank leaf, with a period bookseller's label (Loescher & Seeber: Florence) to the verso of the front flyleaf. A very good or better copy in the original red parallel cord-grain buckram dust jacket and the publisher's vermilion pebble-grain buckram-covered slipcase. Provenance: from the Publishers' Bookbindings collection of Ellen K. Morris and Edward S. Levin.