Grant Allen - Strange Stories, Chatto & Windus, London, 1892
Grant Allen - Strange Stories, Chatto & Windus, London, 1892. A new edition with a frontispiece by George Du Maurier.
Charles Grant Blairfindie Allen (1848-1899), Canadian by birth, British resident in latter life, was one of the outstanding popularisers of science in the last quarter of the 19th century. His serious work Physiological Aesthetics (1877), The Colour Sense (1897) was praised by Darwin, Wallace, and Huxley; but he found it impossible to make a living ay science and turned to journalism, where he was a frequent contributor to the periodicals. He is now remembered for The Women Who Did (1895), the story of a woman who considered free love less degrading than marriage; and The British Barbarians (1896), in which a man from the future described British culture on the 19th century in terms of comparative anthropology. Allen's best-knowns mystery story is An African Millionaire (1897), an amusing episodic novel which relates the adventures and pranks of one Colonel Clay, an engaging confidence man.
Hardback, light blue cloth, black lettering and design on from board and gilt lettering on the spine. Floral signed endpapers, 350P + 32 publishers listings. Protection sheet over title page.
Condition: Good - Bruising to corners, top and bottom spine folding, hinge crack front between endpaper, rough cut top page edges. Some spine fade.