Sylvie and Bruno [with] Sylvie and Bruno Concluded.

London: Macmillan and Co.,, 1889 & 1893. Is Life itself a dream, I wonder? First editions of Carroll's final novels, finely bound by Bayntun with attractive multicolour onlay designs on the covers after Furniss's illustrations. "Late in life Dodgson published Sylvie and Bruno (1889) and Sylvie and Bruno Concluded (1893), two long, complicated novels depicting three realms of being. Essentially love stories, they contain some imaginative flights that sparkle, but, where Dodgson in the Alice books eschewed any moral lesson, here he set himself a mission to edify and instruct, suggesting 'some thoughts that may prove... not wholly out of harmony with the graver cadences of Life' (preface, Sylvie and Bruno, xiii)" (ODNB). Two vols, octavo (180 x 120 mm). Early 20th-century red morocco by Bayntun, spines with gilt-dotted raised bands, compartments lettered and framed in gilt, elaborate gilt borders to covers, front covers with multicolour pictorial onlay centrepieces after Furniss (vol. I, p. 48; vol. II, p. 8), board edges and turn-ins tooled in gilt, marbled paper doublures, marbled free endpapers, edges gilt, orange silk bookmarkers. With original red cloth covers and spine bound in at rear of both vols. Frontispieces and numerous black and white illustrations in text by Harry Furniss. Both vols bound without advertisements. Cloth and gilt bright, spines uniformly slightly darkened, vol. I with small loss of leather to bottom spine compartment, contents generally clean. A very good set, attractively bound. Williams, Madan, Green & Crutch 217 & 250.