TWO NOVELS FROM THE FANTOD PRESS : THE GRAND PASSION [and] THE DOLEFUL DOMESTICITY [envelope title]

[New York]: The Fantod Press, 1992. First Separate Edition. 5 1/8 inches. 2 volumes. Both volumes [16] ff., including, after the title page, one illustrated phrase on each leaf, printed on rectos only, plus colophon on rear wrapper recto. Original color pictorial wrappers, stapled, in original printed envelope. Numbered and signed by the artist on the colophons. Envelope light scuffed and toned. Fine in a near fine envelope.

Number 414 of a limited edition of 500 copies numbered and signed by the artist. The first publication in book form of two works both bearing the credit, "Englished anonymously from the Conton Dialect (1930) and illustrated by Edward Gorey." The book referred to is a real one: SELECT PHRASES IN THE CONTON DIALECT COMPILED (Canton, China: [s.n.], 1930), a now-scarce 54-page guide to Cantonese words and phrases for speakers of English, from which apparently all of the phrases in the present two works are drawn. The illustrations in both THE GRAND PASSION and THE DOLEFUL DOMESTICITY feature the same couple (plus a child and infant in the latter work) accompanying the phrases ("This flower has opened very beautifully," "That is the bad of it all," "A rat fell into the scales abd weighed itself," "Sweep the cobwebs a way," etc.). Their attire is not Chinese but Japanese, with some western elements.

THE GRAND PASSION originally appeared in June 20, 1976, issue of THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE, and THE DOLEFUL DOMESTICITY originally appeared in the Summer 1991 issue of THE YALE REVIEW.

Toledano A105, A106, and A107.