PBA Galleries

(8vo), original red cloth stamped in gilt and white. Second Edition, with new 5-line preface. BAL 1121.

First published in 1893, this second edition is inscribed and signed by Bierce to poet George Sterling on front flyleaf, dated Washington, D.C., April 20, 1903. Sterling's bookplate is mounted to front pastedown. 

In an introduction to Sterling's poem, A Wine of Wizardry, Bierce wrote "Whatever length of days may be according to this magazine, it is not likely to do anything more notable in literature than it accomplished in this issue by the publication of Mr. George Sterling's poem, 'A Wine of Wizardry.'" In answer to Sterling having sent him a first draft of the poem, Bierce answered Sterling, "I hardly know how to speak of it. No poem in English of equal length has so bewildering a wealth of imagination. Not Spencer himself has flung such a profusion of jewels into so small a casket."