Books & Manuscripts, including Americana

13 volumes, 8vo. Half-titles. (Occasional spotting.) Early 20th century half red morocco gilt, spines in 3 compartments with 2 raised bands, gilt-lettering in one, others with geometric tools gilt, top edges gilt, others uncut, stamp-signed by G.P. Putnam's. Provenance: A. Watson Armour III (1908-1991), president of Armour and Company, one of the leading firms in the meat packing industry in Chicago (armorial bookplate).

FIRST UNEXPURGATED ENGLISH TRANSLATION, LIMITED ISSUE, numbers 123, 378, and 257 of 500 copies.

A notable product of Victorian restraint and ingenuity, The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night was issued privately for the Villon Society in 1882-1884, a deliberate strategy that permitted the translator to evade the constraints of the Obscene Publications Act 1857. The Arabian Nights, long mediated in Europe through the expurgated rendering of Antoine Galland, contained episodes of marked erotic frankness, sexual intrigue, and licentious verse, making it incompatible with the moral expectations—and legal boundaries—of the Victorian book trade. Payne’s solution was not to dilute but to restrict: by limiting distribution to a closed circle of subscribers and avoiding commercial publication altogether, he effectively repositioned the work as a scholarly and antiquarian production, beyond the reach of ordinary censorship.