James Branch Cabell

Hall Code	Description
Mel-A1	First Printing 1913

IMAGES:

COMPILATION

Full Title:

Publication:

New York: Frederick A. Stokes Co., September, 1913

Collation:

Post octavo [22 cm. (8 ¾ in.) x 14.2 cm. (5 ½ in.)] , (viii) + 216 with frontispiece and 3 tipped in color plates. Page (i) half title; (ii) list of books by Cabell, enclosed in a single line box; (iii) title page; (iv) copyright; (v) dedication; (vi) 14 lines of verse in italic; (vii-viii) Contents. Pages (1)-213 text; (214) blank; 215-216 Bibliography; pp. (1), (39), (75), and (135) are fly-titles; pp. (2), (38), (40), (74), and (135) are blank; illustrations face pp. 4, 42, and 122.

Binding:

Frontispiece:

Color painting (by Howard Pyle) of a man drawing a sword while a woman looks on. Subscribed [in italic] "Demetrios wrenched the sword from its scabbard" (see image above).

Dedication:

TO | SARAH READ McADAMS | IN GRATITUDE AND AFFECTION (see image above).

Dust jacket / Advertising Material:

The unusual dust jacket has a cut-out in the front panel that exposes the paste-down on the front cover. The second dust jacket scan shows the jacket in place on the book, displaying the front cover art. The copy examined here also had a second wrapper of plain glassine tissue covering the printed dust jacket. While it seems reasonable that this might be as issued, to protect the cover illustration, it is by no means clear that this was the case, and so must be listed as a possibility only. Also laid in were three pieces of Stokes advertising material: a postcard and two small pasteboard cards, each listing other available titles on both sides (see images above).

Front panel: [all in green on a white background] THE SOUL OF | MELICENT | [device] JAMES BRANCH CABELL | [heavy single line box enclosing a cut-out that exposes a portion of the the front cover paste-down illustration] | ILLUSTRATED BY HOWARD PYLE

Rear panel: [all in green on a white background] [all enclosed in a single line box] 35 lines of advertising material listing four titles for sale by Stokes

Front flap: [all in green on a white background] [all enclosed in a single line box] 38 line blurb for The Soul of Melicent

Rear flap: [all in green on a white background] [all enclosed in a single line box] 32 line blurb for Sherwood, by Alfred Noyes

Notes:

Holt, Brussel, and Brewer all state that in "a few" of the earliest copies page (ii) is blank, instead of carrying a list of works by Cabell. Hall states that he had never seen such a copy, and was inclined to doubt its existence. He further said that if such copies did exist, they resulted from a printer's error and thus did not deserve the dignity of being considered as a separate state. While we have never seen such a copy either, we must disagree with Hall's statement. In point of fact, many separate states of books result from printers' errors, which are then corrected in later states.

A Letter from Cabell to I.R. Brussel concerning The Soul of Melicent:

This letter discussing the illustrations for The Soul of Melicent was laid into Brussel's copy of the book, which bears his bookplate (right). Unfortunately the 'memorandum' referred to is no longer present, but its content may be guessed at from p. 41-42 of A Bibliography of the Writings of James Branch Cabell: A Revised Bibliography, Hall F3 /A21, and, as Cabell suggests, by consulting the "Author's Note" to the Storisende Chivalry, Hall Chiv-C1 (S).