[George du Maurier's 'Trilby'.] The original version, as published in eight parts in Harper's New Monthly Magazine, containing the characterisation of 'Joe Sibley', revised on publication in book form following complaints from the artist Whistler.

Author: 
George du Maurier [James Abbott McNeill Whistler; Harper & Brothers, New York and London]
Publication details: 
The eight parts extracted from Harper's New Monthly Magazine (Harper & Brothers, New York and London), January to August 1894.
£250.00
SKU: 15690

[179]pp., 8vo, paginated 167-189 (and magazine frontispiece); 329-350; 567-[587]; 721-741; 825-[847] [the last five from vol.88]; 67-87; 261-284; 351-374 [the last three from vol.89]. In a contemporary binding, with ticket of Goulden & Curry, The Royal Library, Tunbridge Wells. Very good, lightly aged and worn, in black leather half-binding with black cloth boards and gilt tooling. Ownership inscription on front free endpaper: 'Weldon | Didmarton | Janry. 1900 -'. The binder has gone to some trouble, blocking extraneous text by laying down blank paper, apart from the first page of the first (January 1894) issue and its frontispiece. This is the original version, with du Maurier's satirical portrait of Whistler as 'Joe Sibley'. Following Whistler's complaints and threats of legal action (he obtained the legal opinion of the barrister Edward Thomas Holloway), Harpers published a heavily-revised version of the book in September 1894, having issued an apology in the October 1894 edition of their magazine. See Whistler's characteristic letter in The Critic, 16 June 1894, together with the 17 November 1894 issue of the magazine, as well as the fifth chapter of 'Trilbyana: The Rise and Progress of a Popular Novel' (New York: The Critic Co., 1895).