The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe: with Notices of His Life and Genius by N.P. Willis, J.R. Lowell, and R.W. Griswold. In two Volumes - Vol. I. Tales; Vol. II Poems and Miscellanies [with] Vol. III. The Literati (THE COMPLETE 1850 3-VOLUME SET)

New York: J.S. Redfield, 1850 Very rare 1850 First Edition set of Poe's Works in 3 Volumes (a 4th volume was added in 1856), 8vo, bound in 3/4 blue levant morocco, with the original covers bound in, with portrait of Poe, and the two other frontispieces engraved, many other illustrations; this edition (with biographical notices by Lowell, Willis, and Griswold commissioned by Poe himself) consisted of the Tales in Volume I, the Poetry and Miscellanies in Volume II, and a third volume with full title, "The Literati: Some Honest Opinions about Authorial Merits and Demerits, with Occasional Works of Personality. Together with Marginalia, Suggestions, and Essays."; Vol 1 is first printing and was originally bound in brown cloth, vol 2 is second with correction to "choir" page 46, also originally in brown cloth, vol 3 first, brown cloth, pages are clean & unfoxed, leather is a little chipped at ends & cracking at hinges (esp. Vol 1), hinges tender but holding, bookplate to first white page of each volume, old bookstore catalog description tacked to first white page of Vol 1 & a magazine portrait of Poe tacked to verso of ffep; the set probably passed through the hands of the legendary Dawson's Bookshop (of Los Angeles) at some point, as Ernest Dawson's bookplate found loose in vol 1, an overall very nice set of the first collected edition of Poe, usually only found in an ex-library state or incomplete; 3 stout sm 8vos: (xx) 483 + 4pp ads; (vi) 7-495pp; (xxxix) 607pp. First Edition. Half-Leather.