London: Vale Press at the Ballantyne Press, 1903. Designs by Charles Ricketts. Limited Edition. London: Ballantyne Press, [Feb] 1903
Limited to 300 copies [with 10 on Vellum]
Typography: Vale type with the Avon fount used for the author’s marginalia on heavy paper, watermarked with engraving tool and wreaths
Ornaments: Full-page “honeysuckle” border, designed by Ricketts and engraved by Keates.
Holland-backed blue boards are original with hand soiling and wear on the corners and edges. Spine has been replaced with linen cloth matching as issued. Labels are original. 4to; 8.125 by 11.875 inches; pp. i-iv v-viii ix x-clvi clvii-clx. The bindings are tight and square. Text clean, light even toning. Front free endpage with offsetting from bookplates of notable book collectors Robert Honeyman IV and Lawrence M. Lande.
Good / No Dust Jacket Issued. Item #15420
This quasi-historical tale of witchcraft purported to be a true chronicle set down by William Meinhold. Oscar Wilde praised Lady Duff Gordon’s translation, first published in German in 1843.
The Amber Witch was for some time held to be a genuine account of, and contemporary sidelight on, the conditions of the peasantry during the Thirty Years’ War, and the attendant obsession with witchcraft and witch-hunting that permeated that era. [Watry]
Full Title: The Amber Witch, The most interesting trial for witchcraft ever known. Printed from an imperfect manuscript by her father, Abraham Schweidler. Edited by William Meinhold, Doctor of Theology. Translated from the German by Lady Duff Gordon
