1894 Rare First Edition - The Water Ghost and Other Ghost Stories by J.K. Bangs

Author: John Kendrick Bangs.
Title: The Water Ghost and Others.
Publisher: New York, Harper & Brothers, 1894. First Edition.
Language: Text in English.
Size: 7 " X 5 ".
Pages: 296 pages.
Binding: Attractive and near fine original publisher’s decorative green cloth binding, richly decorated with elaborate silver scrollwork and gilt lettering on the front board and spine. Rear board plain. Spine with gilt titles and floral ornaments (hinges fine - as shown) under a protective removable mylar cover. A beautifully preserved example of Harper’s ornamental bindings of the 1890s.
Content: Very good content (bright, tight and clean, includes an early ownership inscription dated September 1894 and a decorative bookplate of William Hatfield on the front pastedown - as shown).
Illustrations: Illustrated with frontispiece and 40 full-page black-and-white drawings, complementing Bangs’s humorous and spectral tales.

Estimate: (USD 250–300).

The book: A rare first edition of John Kendrick Bangs’s The Water Ghost and Others (1894), a landmark collection blending ghost stories and satire. Known for inventing the comic “Bangsian fantasy” genre—where the afterlife becomes a stage for humor—Bangs turns haunted houses and spectral visitations into witty parodies of Victorian ghost fiction. This volume includes the now-classic tale “The Water Ghost of Harrowby Hall,” among other supernatural sketches filled with irony and charm. Its decorative binding in silver and gilt exemplifies the artistic flair of Harper & Brothers at the fin de siècle.

The author: John Kendrick Bangs (1862–1922) was an American humorist, editor, and author best remembered for his witty satires and as the originator of “Bangsian fantasy.” Besides his ghostly comedies, Bangs served as editor of Harper’s Weekly and contributed widely to American humor literature, blending the supernatural with social critique.