Three Midnight Stories is an English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

-language collection of three of Alexander Wilson Drake

Alexander Wilson Drake

Alexander Wilson Drake was an American artist, collector and critic, born near Westfield, NJ. He studied wood engraving under John W. Orr of New York city, as well as oil and water-color painting. He was in the wood engraving business on his own account in New York city from 1865 to 1870...

's short stories along with several poems brought together and interspersed with many of his engravings, as well as photographic prints of his residence and art collection.

This printing, the first and only edition, was printed in New York, New York in 1916. It was produced as a memorial by Drake's employer, The Century Company

The Century Company

The Century Company was an American publishing company, founded in 1881.It was originally a subsidiary of Charles Scribner's Sons, but was bought and renamed. The magazine it had published up to that time, Scribners Monthly, was renamed The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine.The Century Company...

. A print run of a total of 500 hand-numbered copies was produced and distributed to family and friends. The book is 88 pages (including dividers) with over 30 illustrations; a mix of photographs and engravings. Books were hard-bound, with paper jacket, boxed. Box had title slip gummed on front with copy number hand-written below the title. Box and book were hand-numbered to match.

The stories were originally published in short succession in Century Magazine around the year 1902 or 1903. They are precusrors of the later wave of "weird fiction". The first is of an artist who is collecting all the elements required for a haunted house; the second of a man who wished to acquire a halo for his dead wife; the third is of an experiment with a bird and balloon.

External links

• Internet Archive
  Internet Archive
  The Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
  
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• Library of Congress: