Venetian Life William Dean Howells

The 1892 Trade edition in 2 Volumes. White cloth stamped in gold. Slight spotting to boards, shelf wear to bottom edges. Overall lovely near fine copies with original ribbons still intact. On the verso of the front flyleaf is a full page autographed inscription signed by Howells. "The charm of the place sweetens you temper, but corrupts you; and I found it a sad condition of my perception of the beauty of Venice and friendship with it, that I came in some unconscious way to regard her fate as my own; and when I began to write the sketches that form this book, it was as hard to speak of any ugliness in her, or of the doom written against her in the hieroglyphic scours and fissures of her crumbling masonry, as if the fault and penalty were mine. W. D. Howells." In volume two on the front free end paper is the inscription " Louise Maude May 1895 of Hayman Thomas." Louise Maude along with her husband Aylmer were friends with Leo Tolstoy and translated most of his major works into English. Howells championed Tolstoy in America despite it being unpopular with American tastes.