THE MARBLE FAUN; or The Romance of Monte Beni

Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1890. 2 volumes. First Edition thus. With 27 full-page photogravure plates in Vol. I and 24 in Vol. II. 8vo, handsomely bound in three-quarter crimson calf over red cloth covered boards, the spines with raised bands separating the compartments which are ruled in gilt and decorated with central gilt ornaments bordered by tooling in gilt, two compartments with burgundy morocco lettering labels gilt, the endleaves of handsomely patterned paper, top edges gilt. ii, 266; 268-527 pp. A very handsome and pleasing set. The text blocks are clean and the bindings are tight and well preserved with only minor evidence of age or use. FIRST EDITION OF THIS HANDSOME ILLUISTRATED SET OF HAWTHORNE'S ROMANCE WRITTEN DURING HIS SOJOURN IN ITALY.
Italy was the site of this, one of Hawthorne’s most popular books. Of it, the writer said, “No author, without a trial, can conceive of the difficulty of writing a romance about a country where there is no shadow, no antiquity, no mystery, no picturesque and gloomy wrong, nor anything but a commonplace prosperity, in broad and simple daylight, as is happily the case with my dear native land. It will be very long, I trust, before romance-writers may find congenial and easily handled themes, either in the annals of our stalwart republic, or in any characteristic and probable events of our individual lives. Romance and poetry, ivy, lichens, and wall-flowers need ruin to make them grow.”
John Lothrop Motley wrote to Hawthorne that " I like those shadowy, weird, fantastic, Hawthornesque shapes flitting through the golden gloom which is the atmosphere of the book. I like the misty way in which the story is indicated rather than revealed. The outlines are quite definite enough, from the beginning to the end, to those who have imagination enough to follow you in your airy flights; and to those who complain, I suppose nothing less than an illustrated edition with a large gallows on the last page, with Donatello in the most pensive of attitudes, his ears revealed at last through a white nightcap, would be satisfactory." Henry Wadsworth Longfellow called it a "wonderful book" and William Dean Howells wrote that it would "...[yield] him that full honor and praise which a writer can hope for but once in his life.