In three volumes. Pp. viii+316+[vi] +340(last blank)+[vi]+300(last blank)+32(publisher's catalogue, dated September 1886), floral patterned endpapers; dark blue cloth, lettered and decorated in gilt & black, boards slightly canted, with small damp mark to upper board Volumes I & III, edges lightly rubbed, fore-corners bruised; armorial bookplate on blank preliminary leaf Volume III, the free endpapers slightly offset, with tiny inked scribble on upper free endpapers, lower hinge starting Volume I, a few pages loose, a little light foxing and soiling; Chatto & Windus, London, 1886. Second edition. [See Wolff 436]. \kerning3 * Presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the half-title page of Volume I: 'With the Author's Compliments October 27 1886'. S i r Walter Besant, (1836-1901) wrote several novels, biographies, and a series of historical studies of London. From 1871 to 1882 he wrote fiction in collaboration with James Rice, the editor of Once a Week. His first independent novel, All Sorts and Conditions of Men (1882), dealt with the problem of East London slums, which is also the theme of Children of Gibeon. The novel was the basis for a 1920 British silent film, directed by Sidney Morgan and starring Joan Morgan, Langhorn Burton and Eileen Magrath. Besant's work was enormously popular in the late nineteenth century. \kerning0. Item #147066