Crawford, In Palace of the King, Old Madrid, 1st UK Edition 1900 illustrated

"In the Palace of the King. A Love Story of Old Madrid" by F. Marion Crawford, with illustrations by Fred Roe. Published by Macmillan, London; 1900, First Edition, Second printing November 1900 [the first printing was issued one month earlier; illustrated with full page plates.

Hard boards, original publisher's cloth, front board and spine are decorated in gold, silver, red and black; 5.1/4" x 8"; stamp of John Griff Edwards on the front endpaper, half-title page and "List of Illustrations" page, 367 pages + 4-page publisher's list of Crawford's books; printed on high quality laid paper, 6 monochrome plates including frontispiece on glossy paper [all listed plates are present]; a little wear, a little soiling and a few small page corner folds, very good condition.

"In the Palace of the King" is an adventure story: The hero dares fall in love with a Spanish lady of rank, and many are the hair's-breadth escapes that ensue. The story begins: Two young girls sat in a high though very narrow room of the old Moorish palace to which King Philip the Second had brought his court when he finally made Madrid his capital. It was in the month of November, in the afternoon, and the light was cold and grey, for the two tall windows looked due north, and a fine rain had been falling all the morning. The stones in the court were drying now, in patches, but the sky was like a smooth vault of cast lead, closing over the city that lay to the northward, dark, wet and still, as if its life had shrunk down under ground, away from the bitter air and the penetrating damp..."

"In the Palace of the King" has been adapted for stage at Broadway in 1900 starring Viola Allen and her father C. Leslie Allen. The first silent movie based on this book was released in 1915 by the Essanay Company and starred Richard Travers and Nell Craig. The second version, the 1923 silent movie, was directed by Emmett J. Flynn, starring Blanche Sweet, Pauline Starke, and Edmund Lowe.

Francis Marion Crawford (1854-1909) was an American writer noted for his many novels, especially those set in Italy, and for his classic weird and fantastic stories. Crawford was born in Bagni di Lucca, Grand Duchy of Tuscany. He was the only son of the American sculptor Thomas Crawford and Louisa Cutler Ward. His sister was the writer Mary Crawford Fraser (aka Mrs. Hugh Fraser), and he was the nephew of Julia Ward Howe, the American poet. In 1879, Crawford went to India, where he studied Sanskrit and edited in Allahabad The Indian Herald. Returning to America in February 1881, he continued to study Sanskrit at Harvard University for a year, and for two years contributed to various periodicals. In December 1882, he produced his first novel, Mr Isaacs, a sketch of modern Anglo-Indian life mingled with a touch of Oriental mystery. It had an immediate success, and Dr Claudius (1883) followed promptly. Year by year Crawford published a number of successful novels.Late in the 1890s, Crawford began to write his historical works. His Saracinesca series is perhaps known to be his best work, with the third in the series, Don Orsino, set against the background of a real estate bubble, told with effective concision. A fourth book in the series, Corleone, was the first major treatment of the Mafia in literature.

Provenance:

From the library of John Griff Edwards (1870-1912), he belonged to the old established settler families in Virginia. His father and uncles served in the Army of Northern Virginia during the Civil War. The grandfather, LeRoy Griffin Edwards (1804-1866), was the president of the Confederate Convention of 1864. John's wife, Mrs. J. Griff Edwards founded and led the first of the United Confederate Choirs of America (1907). After that she was elected the "Commander in Chief of the United Confederate Choirs." In 1911 she published a volume titled "Echoes From Dixie A Collection of Songs Used in the South."

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