1893 Rare Book - The Gold Bug by Edgar Allan Poe, Illustrated by Mittis

An attractive miniature 1893 illustrated edition of Poe’s classic tale of cryptography, treasure, and mystery.

Author: Edgar Allan Poe.
Title: The Gold Bug.
Publisher: Boston, Joseph Knight Company, 1893. “World Classics” series.
Language: Text in English.
Size: 5" x 3".
Pages: 130 pages.
Binding: Attractive and very good original tan cloth binding, decorated and lettered in white and green to the upper board and spine, with ornamental borders and fleur-de-lis motifs. Light soiling and age-toning to the cloth, with minor rubbing and small marks, as shown. Upper edge gilt. Protected in a removable mylar cover. 
Content: Very good content, bright and clean overall, with light age-toning and occasional minor foxing or spotting. With an attractive previous owner’s bookplate of Charles Lincoln Bailey, dated 1897, to the front pastedown, as shown.
Illustrations: Illustrated in black and white by Mittis, including a title-page vignette and several atmospheric illustrations throughout.

Estimate: USD $225–$250.

The book: A charming small-format illustrated edition of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Gold-Bug, published in Boston by Joseph Knight Company in 1893 as part of the “World Classics” series. The book presents one of Poe’s most famous tales of deduction and hidden treasure, centered on William Legrand, a mysterious golden scarab, and a cryptogram that leads toward buried pirate gold.

This edition is especially appealing in its decorative cloth binding, with a bright white sunburst design on the upper board and period ornamental borders. The small size, the illustrated presentation, and the late nineteenth-century American publisher’s design give it the feeling of a compact literary keepsake.

The author: Edgar Allan Poe remains one of the central figures of American literature, celebrated for his tales of mystery, horror, detection, and psychological suspense. The Gold-Bug, first published in 1843, became one of his most popular stories and helped establish the literary fascination with cryptography and puzzle-driven detection.

The illustrator: The illustrator is credited on the title page as Mittis. The black-and-white illustrations add a suitably mysterious visual atmosphere, with skulls, pirate imagery, insects, and dramatic scenes that echo the story’s themes of secrecy, obsession, and buried treasure.