1890 Scarce First Edition - Eaglehurst Towers by Emma Marshall, Illustrated

Author: Emma Marshall.
Title: Eaglehurst Towers.
Publisher: London, S. W. Partridge & Co., 9 Paternoster Row, [circa 1890]. First Edition.
Language: Text in English.
Size: 7 × 5 inches.
Pages: viii-224 pages followed by 16 pages of publisher’s advertisements.
Binding: Attractive and fine stunning publisher’s pictorial blue cloth binding, decorated in gilt, black, silver, and blind-stamping, depicting Eaglehurst Towers—a gothic cliffside castle battered by the sea beneath a rising sun. Bright gilt titling to spine and upper board; all edges gilt. 
Content: Very good, near fine content (bright, tight and clean, rare light foxing mainly to preliminaries - as shown).Plain yellow endpapers, uninscribed and clean. 
Illustrations: Illustrated throughout with a frontispiece and four full-page engraved plates, along with numerous finely engraved vignettes and ornamental headers within the text. Complete.

Estimate: (Scarce with no or few other copies of this first edition available for sale worldwide).

The book: An exceptionally well-preserved first edition of Eaglehurst Towers, a scarce and visually striking example of Victorian illustrated fiction. Set on the storm-swept north-west coast of England, the tale unfolds around a young woman rescued from a shipwreck near the mysterious Old Nicolas Rock, beneath the crumbling towers of the eponymous castle. The novel blends moral fortitude, domestic faith, and the redemptive spirit characteristic of Marshall’s works. Issued by S. W. Partridge & Co. in their most decorative binding period, this edition—with its gilt, silver, and black-embossed design—is a splendid example of late-Victorian pictorial cloth craftsmanship.

The author: Emma Marshall (née Martin, 1830–1899) was one of the most prolific and widely read female novelists of the Victorian era, authoring over 200 moral and devotional works. Her fiction often explored themes of faith, perseverance, and redemption within domestic and historical settings. She was also the mother of Christabel Gertrude Marshall (1871–1960), better known as Christopher St. John—a playwright, author, and campaigner for women’s suffrage, who later collaborated with Edith Craig and Clemence Housman. Eaglehurst Towers was published when Christabel was sixteen, and represents Emma Marshall’s mature style of spiritually reflective storytelling.