From the 1859 edition (viewed as a Google Books scan):
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The title page byline credits 'Mrs. Crowe, authoress of "Night Side of Nature," &c.'; the preface closes 'Catherine Crowe.' and '15th October, 1858.'
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The Preface presents the frame narrative as nonfiction. Within that frame every story is printed in quotation marks, with its dialogue in two sets of quotation marks.
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The second paragraph of the frame narrative: "After some discussion on the existence of ghosts and cognate subjects, it was agreed that each should relate a story, restricting himself to circumstances that had either happened to himself or had been told him by somebody fully entitled to confidence, who had undergone the experience."
Throughout the frame narrative Crowe identifies participants by title and initial such as Mr. R., Miss P., Captain S., Madame Von B.
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The first part of the book, "Round the Fire", is framed as ghost stories told by members of a house party. It is divided into eight "evenings". Various stories told on each evening are given titles in the Contents listing for that evening, which don't appear in the text itself.
(Those informal story titles are listed in the 1859 publication record.)
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"Round the Fire" is followed by an "Appendix" containing purported correspondence: letters sent to Crowe, which narrate further ghostly experiences. She states that she is reprinting them verbatim, but has reduced the authors' names to initials.
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The second part of the book, "Legends of the Earthbound", purports to be family legends told by members of the same house party.
- Limited edition of 175 copies
- Edited with an introduction by Richard Dalby
- Data from WorldCat (OCLC, below), as series "Richard Dalby's mistresses of the macabre."
WorldCat provides a list of 7 Contents, "Legends of the Earthbound" followed by the first six stories listed below (2019-11-20). Those are the name of the 1859 "Second Part: Legends of the Earthbound" and the titles of its six stories.
But --from an image of the Contents list, viewed 2019-11-20 at rare and antiquarian dealer RichardDalbysLibrary.com-- this edition contains that 1859 Second Part "Legends of the Earthbound", followed by the 1859 First Part "Round the Fire", followed by an "Appendix" that may be the 1859 Appendix to the First Part.
Nothing in the Contents list suggests that this edition contains the 1859 "Preface".
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Cover image from Amazon UK 2019-11-20, as "Buy Used £174.62" and "Sarob Press (1 Jan. 2005)", with "Look inside" another edition.
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"Cover Art copyright (c) Paul Lowe 2005" is stated in the book; and "Cover art by Paul Lowe" stated on the back inside jacket flap, which lists series Richard Dalby's Mistresses of the Macabre (Volume 1 to Volume 7, Sarob Press 2005).
--images viewed at RichardDalbysLibrary.com
Price from archived home.freeuk.net/sarobpress site; price also $45.
