The Bright Messenger.

London: Cassell and Company, Ltd,, 1921. Once he had completed The Bright Messenger, Blackwood had nothing else to tell the world First edition, first impression, in the rare dust jacket. This sequel to Julius Le Vallon (1916) is "the book Blackwood really wanted to write" (Ashley). His earlier portrait of a man possessed by an elemental spirit finds its full expression in this title, in which Le Vallon's child Julian becomes the potential half-human half-spirit saviour of mankind. "The Bright Messenger was not just the long-awaited finale to Julius Levallon, but the last piece in Blackwood's grand design, the culmination of [his] crusade to make people aware of beauty in the world... once he had completed The Bright Messenger, Blackwood had nothing else to tell the world" (Ashley). This copy has the bookplate of the poet Orford Young on the front pastedown, author of the little-known verse collection Diminutives (1924). Octavo. Original light brown cloth, spine and front cover lettered and decorated with leaf motif borders and rules in brown, lower edge untrimmed. With dust jacket. Clipping of TLS review loosely inserted, dated and titled in manuscript. Spine cocked, cloth bright, ends bumped, contents a touch foxed; spine panel browned, extremities a little nicked and rubbed, slight chips at spine ends and corners, one to front fold of spine, tape repairs on verso, unclipped: a near-fine copy in good jacket. Mike Ashley, "Curiosities: The Bright Messenger by Algernon Blackwood", Fantasy & Science Fiction, September 2002.