An unusual Whyte-Melville offering. Whyte-Melville was better known as an author of poetry, historical novels, or stories featuring field sport - “Bones and I” stands as an outlier. Written from the perspective of a recluse who lives in “cheerful companionship” with a skeleton in London, the story is a series of conversations between the pair, who meditate on the nature of life, humanity, time, the natural world, and other such broad and weighty subjects through a series of vignettes. Chapters include ‘The Vampire’, ‘A Day that is Dead’, ‘Haunted’, ‘The Four Leaved Shamrock’, ‘Shadows’ etc.
First published in 1868, the sheets for this were printed by Chapman & Hall in 1881, and bound later by Ward, Lock & Co.
Ownership inscription to front endpaper. Some losses to the paper covered boards, as is common, particularly along the edges of the spine, and fore-edge of boards. A reasonably good copy of a fragile book.
