Forbidden Fruit (The Cobweb Series of Choice Fiction)

Boston: Estes and Lauriat, 1877. First American edition. Hardcover. Good +. 262pp. Duodecimo [18 cm] Orange cloth over boards, with very elaborate decoratively stamped cobweb and spider designs in black and red on the spine and boards. Title in gilt on the spine. Publisher's advertisements for "The Cobweb Series" and other "Choice Fiction" printed on the endpapers. Advertisements for "New and Popular Novels" at the rear. Spine rolled, and extremities gently bumped. The text block is cracked a couple of times, but the book is quite sturdy. From the collection of Berkeley book collector and letterpress printer, John Ruyle. Translated from the German of F. W. Hackländer by Rosalie Kaufman. Scarce, and in the publisher's lovely binding.

From The Publisher's Weekly (No. 299, October 6, 1877, p. 403) -

"All of the events of this romance take place within a few days. A young German officer, Eugene von Warring, has been left an income of ten thousand dollars on condition that he marries before his twenty-fifth year. But a couple of months intervene between his birthday when the story opens. He is on a visit to his sister, who determines to take the matter in hand and get him a wife. Thinking it the nature of man to ardently desire just what he cannot have, she pretends that a charming young girl she wants him to marry is affianced to another, or in other words is 'forbidden fruit.' However, the bait does not take except for a short time, the count suddenly falling in love with a young art student, who turns out to be a great lady. Hackländer paints German domestic life with a wonderful skill and freshness, giving to these simple incidents an unusual attractiveness.