This book is noteworthy in that the frontispiece plate of a young woman tying an elder man's cravat is believed to be the very first published illustration by J. E. Millais, who would go on to be a central figure of the Pre-Raphaelite movement. In his Introduction, Collins explains that this "sketch" (about a man making a plaster cast of a bust of Shakespeare with the intention of producing copies, and the cast's subsequent theft) is based upon fact -- and proceeds to divulge much of the plot; it is interesting to note that "the second edition eliminates most of the introduction and provides a good example of the young novelist learning the craft of suspense" [Gasson].

The cloth of this copy is blue-violet, with a wavy-line grain that provides the effect of vertical lines (other grains of cloth were used, without priority). This is a very good-plus copy (spine slightly darkened, front endpaper cracked). Bookplates of Pickford Waller (1849-1930, English designer and supporter/collector of J. MacNeill Whistler), and of William Hartmann Woodin (1868-1934, American industrialist and Secretary of the Treasury under FDR). Sadleir (Excursions) p. 137; Wolff 1367; Parrish & Miller p. 18; Gasson pp 108-109.