TOLD AFTER SUPPER; With 96 or 97 Illustrations by Kenneth M. Skeaping
London, England: The Leadenhall Press, E.C., 1891. Kenneth M. Skeaping. Leather-bound. 12mo, 7.5 in. x 5.6 in., pp. [1] (advertising), 169, 1-14 (advertising). Illustrated in blue ink with tissue-guarded frontis, nineteen additional full page plates, and dozens of in text line drawings. Gorgeously rebound by Henry Southeran Ltd. in dark red three quarter morocco over red cloth boards. Gilt title and decorative bottle design, and 5 raised bands, to spine. Top edge gilt. New marbled endpapers. Printed in dark blue ink on light blue heavyset paper. Untrimmed bottom edge. Bookbinders name to verso of front free endpaper. Light tanning to margins of half title page. Very Good Plus. Item #86749
From the Introduction: "All these things happen on Christmas Eve, they are all told of on Christmas Eve. For ghost stories to be told on any other evening than the evening of the twenty-fourth of December would be impossible in English society as at present regulated. Therefore, in introducing the sad but authentic ghost stories that follow hereafter, I feel that it is unnecessary to inform the student of Anglo-Saxon literature that the date on which they were told and on which the incidents took place was--Christmas Eve."
"Told After Supper is an anthology of short humorous ghost stories by the British author Jerome K. Jerome (1859-1927). ... The stories are connected by a framing device in which the unnamed narrator attends a Christmas Eve dinner party at his uncle's house. After having eaten and drunk a large amount of alcohol, the guests, as was normal on Christmas Eve in Victorian Britain, tell ghost stories to each other. The narrator does not include all of the stories that are told that evening in the anthology. He has to leave two of them out because he does not understand them. The last story in the anthology is the narrator's own story of the ghostly experience that he has on that Christmas Eve, which ends with him making a public disgrace of himself." (from Fandom).
Price: $275.00