The Temple of Fancy: or, Choice Riddles, Enigmas, Charades, and Conundrums. Calculated to Amuse the Minds of Youth.
London: Whittingham and Arliss, [n.d., ca. 1816]. Edition and date not given, though the publisher’s ad lists titles with dates of 1815 and 1816. The present book also appeared under the J. Arliss imprint, though no copies seem to bear dates. OCLC lists only four copies under the Whittingham and Arliss imprint: one in England, one in Canada, one at Yale, and one at Princeton. The copies with the J. Arliss imprint are scarcer, with OCLC listing one copy in England and one at UCLA. With woodcut frontispiece, elaborate decorative border on title-page, 38 different illustrated vignettes, and one tailpiece. Some wear to boards and some rubbing to extremities. Some chipping to head of spine. Two ink signatures on front endpapers: one dated 1820 and the other from roughly the same time. Some light foxing and some contemporary pencil annotations on last ten pages or so. A very good, clean, and tight copy of a scarce book. Original black roan over marbled boards. Gilt rule and lettering on spine. Twelvemo. 95 pp., [1] p. publisher’s ad. Item #16734
The Temple of Fancy contains 128 riddles, all in verse, with illustrations that offer clues to the riddles’ solutions. Some of the riddles are very simple, though many make reference to obscure historical events and little-known facts; the riddles also seem to progress in difficulty over the course of the book.
Price: $600.00