SYLVIE AND BRUNO [along with] SYLVIE AND BRUNO CONCLUDED. First Editions, in Two Volumes.

London: Macmillan And Co., 1889 & 1893. First Editions. Two Volumes. Octavo, original red cloth with triple borders of gilt and small vignettes on front panels, spine panels lettered, ruled and with a small decoration in gilt, gilt vignettes on rear panels, all edges gilt, coated black endpapers. 400 + [3] pp ads., 423 + [4] pp ads + [1] pp Specimen leaf for ALICE'S ADVENTURES UNDER GROUND (Ms. Facsimile), forty-six (ten full-page) illustrations by Harry Furniss in each volume. Each frontispiece with original tissue-guard. All the ads are for other works by Carroll. Spines uniformly faded, previous owner's signature "Margaret Douglas" along with two small stray water strikes on front board of Vol 1; minor bubbling / creasing to cloth on rear panel of Vol 2; a very good set, clean and sound.

¶ Although issued separately four years apart, SYLVIE AND BRUNO is one long novel, the last novel by Lewis Carroll published during his lifetime. The book has two main plots: one set in the real world at the time the book was published (the Victorian era), the other in the fantasy world of Fairyland. While the latter plot is a fairy tale with many nonsense elements and poems, similar to Carroll's Alice books, the story set in Victorian Britain is a social novel, with its characters discussing various concepts and aspects of religion, society, philosophy and morality. The book was not as well received as the ALICE books and has had very few reprintings.