THE MASTER OF BALLANTRAE. A Winter's Tale by Stevenson, Robert Louis - 1889

1889. London, Paris, New York & Melbourne: Cassell & Company, 1889. 4 pp undated ads plus 16 pp ads dated July 1889. Original red cloth pictorially decorated in black.

First Edition (published on the day before the Scribner's one), with the proper July ads. Stevenson freely acknowledged that his inspiration for this book was Robert Marryat's THE PHANTOM SHIP (1839), which he had recently read. RLS began writing BALLANTRAE in Saranac Lake in 1887 but did not finish it until his first South Seas voyage in 1889. The verso of this copy's front free endpaper lists only ten titles; some copies have a list of twelve or fourteen (priority unknown, but fewest should be best). A tough book to find in decent condition, this copy is very good-plus (spine a little faded and dull, minor soil) -- also the leaves were roughly opened, in one case affecting text. Beinecke 487 (cites only a copy listing 14 titles); Princeton 41A (copy [1] -- mentions copies with all three lists).