Orpheus in Mayfair

  • London: Mills & Boon, 1909
By BARING, Maurice
London: Mills & Boon, 1909. First U.K. Edition. Octavo. 19.5cm. Publisher's green cloth titled in gilt to spine and front board. 306pp. + 2pp. ads to rear. Light sunning to the spine, minor bumping to spine ends and extremities; internally clean with some light soiling and spotting to prelims, very light cosmetic cracking to rear inner hinge. A very good copy.

A collection of 25 tales with some esoteric content, including an eerie preminition of murder, the reworking of a calssical Greek myth to contemporary upper crust London, and a rather splendid William Hope Hodgson-esque vision of the planet Venus being occupied by enormous caterpillars grazing on titanic mushrooms. Very much a Gentleman of Letters, from the Baring banking family, and certainly not lacking the leisure time for literary pursuits, Baring produced some very complex and satisfying fictions of the weirder sort.

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Lorne Bair Rare Books

Specializing in The history, literature, and art of American social movements, including Civil Rights, Feminism, Labor History, Radical Politics, and Counterculture.