The Real Charlotte

First Edition. First edition in three volumes of this Irish classic. This was the Irish cousins' fifth collaborative work and their only three-decker.

Generally considered to be their finest work, it is uncharacteristicallly dark and, as Sutherland notes of the eponymous heroine, 'a remarkable portrait of a majestically powerful, malignant will'. Sadleir 3127; Wolff 6480; Hudson 11-13. There were two distinct binding styles used: bubble-grain red cloth with a plain front cover and smooth purple cloth with a decorated cover.

Sadleir designates them as primary and secondary, without producing any compelling evidence, though he may well be right. The present set is in the so-called secondary binding except that the cloth is scarlet, making this another, previously unrecorded variant. Gilt spine lettering, lettering and decoration in black to frot covers, plain off-white endpapers, all edges trimmed.

This set is extremely well-preserved, definitely not ex-library and with no previous ownership inscriptions. Neat minor repairs using matching cloth to head and tail of spines in 2 volumes, but perfectly sound, bright and internally very clean. No other copies available worldwide at time of listing and a rare opportunity to acquire a first edition set of this classic in such choice condition.