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Morell, Charles [i.e. James Ridley].
The Tales of the Genii: or, the Delightful Lessons of Horam the Son of Asmar.
Publisher: George Bell and Son, London;
Date of Publication: 1881
Stock Code: 15641
Later reprint, the title-page dated 1877 and advertisements dated 1881, after the 1849 revised edition. Octavo, pp., [14] advertisements, xii, 420, [14] publisher’s catalogue. Steel-engraved frontispiece, 11 steel-engraved plates, and 46 wood-engraved vignettes and initials, as called for. Publisher’s original forest-green cloth; titled in gilt to spine; blind-stamped in arabesque design all over; advertisement end-papers. Spine sunned; light mottling to cloth; corners a touch bumped; hinges cracked but joints holding. Numerals in ink to front free end-paper, otherwise internally clean. A serviceable copy. An Orientalist pastiche, comparable to Johnson’s Rassellas (1759), with a fictive imprint. The author, James Ridley (1736-65) originally passed off the stories as the work of an Imam: Horam Son of Asmar, and invented the British translator Sir Charles Morell. The illustrations to this edition are lively and plentiful. £65.00