The Case of Summerfield

(with dust jacket and without the slipcase)

E. H. Rhodes and Geraldine Bonner, (Introduction)

San Francisco and New York: Paul Elder & Company [The Tomoye Press],1907

Limited Edition and first edition thus.

This volume could almost be called fine. There are some flaws, however. This book is a hardback book in dust jacket. 16mo - over 5" - 6" tall. 68 pages. The book is strong, square, with solid hinges, with perfectly straight corners without rubbing. The interior pages are white and clean and bright, with the original ribbon marker present.

This book was once in a library and then discarded. On the front fixed end paper there is affixed a library card pocket. On the front free endpaper there once was a library due date slip but only a remnant of that slip remains. On the title page there is a somewhat faint stamp that states “Discarded” and below that a five digit number written in pen above the publisher and below that a rubber stamp in blue naming the library from which this book was discarded. On the rear fixed end paper are two very faint “Discarded” stamps which are barely readable. Page 54 has a small rubber stamping in green ink at bottom of the page.

This fine book is bound in brown laid paper over beveled boards with a white parchment spine imprinted in Gold (there is small hole in the side of the parchment at the upper left of the front panel. Laterally to either side of this small hole, the parchment is a bit roughened.) There is gilt lettering on the front board as well as the spine, the top page edges are gilt and with brown laid paper endpapers. The lateral page edges are deckled. This book also has a brown satin ribbon marker, the tissue-guarded frontispiece is present, over a photogravure from an oil painting by Galen J. Perrett.

This book is 16 mo size (approximately 6.5" tall), the pagination: (i-iv) being the preliminary pages, i-vi the introduction, sectional half-title with verso blank, 1-54, blank, colophon; the typography was designed by John Henry Nash, and printed on Fabriano hand-made paper.

This book is a Limited Edition of 1000 copies, all of which are unnumbered. Western Classics no. 2, originally published in 1871 in a San Francisco newspaper, this is actually a classic and highly-regarded work of fantasy. Printed by John Henry Nash at the Tomoye Press for Paul Elder and Company.

The dust jacket is of matching brown laid paper, black lettering on the front. The dust jacket is near fine with three tiny chips at the top of the front panel.

Overall a nice copy in dust jacket of an important science fiction book: a scientist discovers a means to set the earth’s oceans on fire and holds the world to ransom. This was originally published in Caxton’s Book, San Francisco in1876.