History Of A Six Weeks' Tour Through A Part Of France, Switzerland, Germany, And Holland: With Letters Descriptive Of A Sail Round The Lake Of Geneva, And Of The Glaciers Of Chamouni. Shelley, Mary & Percy Bysshe.

First edition of Mary Shelley's first book. The History of a Six Weeks' Tour was put together by Mary while she and Percy were living at Marlowe, which is where she finished Frankenstein, which was published on 1 January 1818. Like Frankenstein, the book was anonymously published, though this copy interestingly has many of the names of the persons involved added in pencil in an early hand. The book comprises Mary's eighty-one page journal account of her travels through Europe after her elopement with Percy, accompanied by her step-sister Claire Clairmont, from July to September 1814, to which she added her and Percy's letters, his all to Thomas Love Peacock, relating their second European sojourn, in the summer of 1816, around Lake Geneva and the vale of Chamouni, Switzerland, the trip that gave Mary the genesis of her Frankenstein story. The final addition is Shelley's powerful and mysterious poem "Mont Blanc", which finds its first appearance in print here. Small octavo (160 x 98 mm). Mid-19th-century half calf, spine elaborately gilt in compartments with red morocco title label, marbled sides with double blind rule, marbled endpapers and edges. Bound without half-title. Spine sharp and bright, some minor rubbing to extremities, faint damp mark along top edge of boards and affecting upper margin of some early and late leaves, some minor marks within, F3 with tear from lower fore-corner not affecting text, sound and attractive, a very good copy.