Manuscript Found in a Bottle," pages 67-87 in: The Gift: A Christmas and New Year's Present for 1836

Philadelphia: E.L. Carey & A. Hart, 1835. First book appearance of Edgar Allan Poe's "Manuscript Found in a Bottle," first published in 1833 as the winner of a story contest in the pages of The Baltimore Daily Visiter, and later collected in Poe's 1840 Tales of the Grotesque. Poe's chilling tale of a trapped sailor drifting toward the South Pole is a classic of American horror: "a curiosity to penetrate the mysteries of these awful regions predominates even over my despair, and will reconcile me to the most hideous aspect of death. It is evident that we are hurrying onwards to some exciting knowledge, -- some never-to-be-imparted secret, whose attainment is destruction." In addition to Poe, this Philadelphia gift annual features work by Catharine Maria Sedgwick, Washington Irving, Lydia Sigourney, Samuel Griswold Goodrich, and William Gilmore Simms, and is edited by "Miss Leslie." BAL 16126. A very good copy. Octavo, measuring 6 x 3.75 inches: x, [3], 18-292. Full crimson publisher's morocco signed by Gaskill, elaborately embossed with an American eagle gripping arrows and an olive branch to both boards; gilt titling to spine; floral sprigged endpapers, all edges gilt. Frontispiece and eight tissue-guarded plates throughout text. Pencil presentation inscription to preliminary blank: "J I H P from T B M / Jany 1, 1836." Scattered foxing, discoloration to endpapers, binding lightly soiled.