A Victorian cheat-sheet for everyone in fiction and drama
Brewer’s reference identifies characters, plots, figures and literary allusions, and Marion Harland edited this revised American edition for American readers.
The story
E. Cobham Brewer’s Reader’s Handbook was made for a familiar problem: you meet a name in a novel, a poem or a play and want to know who the person is and what story they belong to. The handbook answers by identifying the characters, plots, figures and allusions of romance, fiction, poetry and drama. In 1896 Selmar Hess of New York issued a revised American version in eight volumes, edited by Marion Harland.
Hess also made it a showpiece of 1890s illustrated publishing, with full-page plates, engraved portraits and scenes, and colour. The entries run alphabetically, each volume taking a stretch of the alphabet, and a reader can still use them to place an unfamiliar character or allusion in older literature.
Here are two of the eight volumes only: Volume II, Cas to Fal, and Volume VII, Ske to Tro; the other six are absent. Both are in the publisher’s matching olive-green cloth with gilt and black floral borders, the front gilt still visible, the boards rubbed and the corners and spine tips worn. Inside, the pages are toned, with tide-mark water stains, creasing and spotting in places, some near the plates. The plates and tissue guards have not been collated.
Details
- Date
- 1896
- Publisher
- Selmar Hess, New York
- Edition
- A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook
- Binding
- cloth: Original matching olive-green publisher's cloth with gilt and black floral borders, titles and decorative center panels.
- Condition
- Volumes II and VII only of an eight-volume issue; six volumes absent. Matching original olive-green publisher's cloth with gilt/black lettering and decorative cover vignettes; front gilt remains visible. Boards and rear covers rubbed and marked; bumping, fraying and cloth wear at corners and spine tips, most conspicuous along the bottoms. Interior pages show age toning and localized tide-shaped water stains/discoloration, creasing and spotting, including on/near illustration leaves; see detailed photographs. Illustrated with engraved and photogravure-style full-page plates and a colored illustration; some tissues visible. Page/plate collation, tissue-guard completeness and binding soundness have not been independently verified. No inscriptions or bookplates visible in submitted photo sample, but not thoroughly inspected.
