1896 Rare 1stED on Werewolves - The Were-Wolf by Clemence Housman, Illustrated
This book has been sold, but we regularly acquire comparable copies.
The rare 1896 First Edition of Clemence Housman’s landmark Gothic werewolf tale, illustrated with six dramatic plates by her brother Laurence Housman.
Author: Clemence Housman.
Title: The Were-Wolf.
Publisher: London: John Lane at The Bodley Head; Chicago: Way and Williams, 1896.
Edition: First Edition.
Language: English.
Pages: 123 pages, followed by publisher’s catalogue.
Size: 7.5 x 6 inches.
Binding: Good to very good original light brown Japanese silk-like cloth binding, lettered and decorated in gilt to the front board and spine. The cloth shows general age toning, rubbing, scattered small marks and light soiling, as shown. Binding remains firm and attractive. Protected in a removable mylar cover.
Content: Very good content, complete and firmly bound, with generally clean, bright pages and only occasional light age toning, spotting or handling marks. Two attractive early ownership bookplates are present: one for Francis R. Dobson and another reading “From the Books of Mary J. L. McDonald,” both mounted to the preliminary leaves as shown. No significant textual defects observed.
Illustrations: Complete with all six full-page black-and-white plates by Laurence Housman: Holy Water, Rol’s Worship, White Fell’s Escape, The Race, The Finish, and Sweyn’s Finding. Also decorated with Laurence Housman’s characteristic ornamental initial and title-page design.
Estimate: USD 450–600.
The book: Clemence Housman’s The Were-Wolf is one of the most distinctive supernatural tales of the 1890s and an important early treatment of the female werewolf in English literature. Set in a wintry Scandinavian landscape, the story centres upon the mysterious and beautiful White Fell, whose arrival among an isolated household gradually reveals a darker, predatory nature. Housman combines folklore, Gothic atmosphere, religious symbolism and suppressed erotic tension in a remarkably concentrated narrative.
First published in 1896 by John Lane at The Bodley Head, the book is also an unusually successful collaboration between Clemence and her younger brother Laurence Housman. His stark, heavily inked illustrations intensify the tale’s atmosphere of snow, darkness, pursuit and transformation. Copies retaining the original decorated cloth and all six plates have become increasingly sought after by collectors of Gothic literature, supernatural fiction, werewolf literature and fin-de-siècle book illustration.
The author: Clemence Annie Housman (1861–1955) was an English author, illustrator, wood engraver and prominent campaigner for women’s suffrage. She was the sister of poet A. E. Housman and artist and writer Laurence Housman. The Were-Wolf, her first novel, remains her best-known literary work and has come to be regarded as an important contribution to late Victorian supernatural and feminist Gothic fiction.
Her later books included The Unknown Sea and The Life of Sir Aglovale de Galis. Alongside her literary career, Housman played an active role in the suffrage movement and was a founding member of the Suffrage Atelier.
The illustrator: Laurence Housman (1865–1959) was an English illustrator, playwright, writer and political activist associated with the artistic culture of the 1890s. His early book work is particularly admired for its strong black-and-white design, decorative line and close relationship between illustration and typography.
For The Were-Wolf, Housman supplied six full-page plates together with ornamental designs that give the volume much of its characteristic fin-de-siècle appearance. His severe, expressionistic treatment of the story’s supernatural and emotional violence makes this one of the most memorable illustrated Gothic books of the period.