first edition
1904
by Wharton, Edith
1904. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1904. Original red cloth.
First Edition of the author's third collection of short stories. The title story is quite appropriate more than a century later: an eminent scientist decides to have a bit of a joke on the general public by publishing a perfect parody of the kind of pseudo-scientific nonsense that... is just a little bit too believable to make disproving it an easy task. His book a resounding success, and the public clamoring for more, the professor faces a dilemma: let everybody down by exposing his satire, thus earning eternal enmity and likely ostracism, or give in to the public for more of the same [Sherrod]. This is a fine, bright copy; atypically, the red spine is NOT faded. Garrison A9.I.a. Provenance: bookplate of the collector Christopher Clark Geest. (Inventory #: 15484)
First Edition of the author's third collection of short stories. The title story is quite appropriate more than a century later: an eminent scientist decides to have a bit of a joke on the general public by publishing a perfect parody of the kind of pseudo-scientific nonsense that... is just a little bit too believable to make disproving it an easy task. His book a resounding success, and the public clamoring for more, the professor faces a dilemma: let everybody down by exposing his satire, thus earning eternal enmity and likely ostracism, or give in to the public for more of the same [Sherrod]. This is a fine, bright copy; atypically, the red spine is NOT faded. Garrison A9.I.a. Provenance: bookplate of the collector Christopher Clark Geest. (Inventory #: 15484)