Full Title:

Title page recto:[all in green] THE | EAGLE'S SHADOW | By | JAMES BRANCH CABELL | [in italic] Illustrated by Will Grefé | Decorated by Blanche Ostertag | Heinemann windmill device | London | Wm. Heinemann| 1904 (see image above).

Title page verso: [all in green] [device of flowers] [in italic] This Edition enjoys Copyright in all| Countries signatory to the Berne |Treaty, and is not to be imported| into the United States of America| [line] | PRINTED BY BERWICK & SMITH CO. | NORWOOD, MASS., U. S. A. (see image above).

Publication:

London: Wm. Heinemann, 1904 [but stamped 1905 on spine].

Collation:

Crown octavo [19.7 cm. (7 ¾ in.) x 12.3 cm. (5 in.)], 1 blank leaf + xii + 258 with tipped-in frontispiece and 7 tipped-in illustrations. Preliminaries printed in green: (i) half-title (verso blank); (iii) blank; (iv) frontispiece; (v) title page; (vi) publication page; (vii) dedication, verso blank; ((ix)-(x), although stated as vii-viii) Contents; (xi) sub-title, verso blank; xi List of Illustrations, verso blank;(1)-(2) The Characters; 3-256 text; last leaf blank. Illustrations face pp. 8, 38, 60, 98, 154, 174, and 220.

As with the Heinemann issue in the publisher's binding, Eag-B1, the preliminaries have been re-ordered from the order they are presented in the American issues. In this variant the List of Illustrations and The Characters pages follow the sub-title.

Binding:

Circulating library binding in green cloth: black lettering; black stamped decoration on front and spine, all edges trimmed. Spine [black decorated band] | [all enclosed in a single ruled black box] THE | EAGLE'S | SHADOW | [black decorated band] | [all enclosed in a single ruked black box] JAMES | BRANCH | CABELL | [decorated band] | [single ruled black box]| [black decorated band] | [enclosed in a single ruled black box] Circular medallion reading in two rings - outer ring: The Times 1785 | inner ring: [surrounded by floral decoration] BOOK | 1905 | CLUB | double black line]. Front cover: [single ruled black box, enclosing a double ruled black box with decorated corners, enclosing a triple ruled black box with black decorated corners | [all enclosed in a shield shaped decoration, open ground] THE | EAGLE'S | SHADOW (see image above).

Frontispiece:

Drawing of a woman seated; subscribed "Margaret' [second quote defective] (see image above).

The drawing by Will Grefé used as the frontispiece originally appeared in the August 6, 1904, issue of The Saturday Evening Post, as an illustration for the first installment of the serial version of The Eagle's Shadow. The original caption was "BUT I DON'T WANT TO MARRY ANYBODY."

Dedication:

[all in green] [device of flowered branch piercing a heart] To | M. L. P. B. | [in italic] In trust that the enterprise may be judged | less by the merits of its factor than | by the of its patron (see image above).

"M. L. P. B." was Martha Louise Patteson Branch (1835 - 1908), Cabell's grandmother.

Endpapers:

[all in green] landscape drawing by Blanche Ostertag (see image above).

Notes:

Issued in London from imported sheets of the first state. Interestingly, James Hall seems to have been the only one of Mr. Cabell's previous bibliographers to report this binding variant. He also stated that [t]his was the first Cabell title to be issued by a book club. It must be noted, though, that the "Times Book Club" was not a book club in the modern sense, but instead a circulating library. Technically, this is a "library binding" variant of the Heinemann issue. Library bindings of this sort were common in the 18th and early 19th centuries; less commonly encountered (or at least identified) after the advent of publishers' cloth, c. 1823 or so. The "Times" seal at the base of the spine, though, clearly identifies this as a true library binding. Click on the image at left to read John Carter's brief discussion of library bindings in his ABC for Book Collectors, London, Rupert Hart-Davis, 1952, pp. 113-114.