Ghosts and Family Legends: A Volume for Christmas

Overview:

• Title: Ghosts and Family Legends: A Volume for Christmas
• Author: Mrs. Crowe
• Year: 1859
• Publisher: T. C. Newby
• Price: 10/6
• Pages: vii+339
• Binding: Hardcover
• Type: Collection
• Title Reference: Preface (Ghosts and Family Legends)
• Notes:
  Published late in December 1858, apparently too late for the intended Christmas gift season. That and price are from advertisements in The Athenaeum, "Mr. Newby's New Publications": • 1858-11-06 p575 (earliest found) as "1 vol. post 8vo. 10s. 6d. [In Nov."; identically three weeks later • 1858-12-25 p847 (next found) as "1 vol. 10s. 6d. [This day." Christmas day 1858 was a Saturday, as always for the stated publication date of The Athenaeum. "It is hardly necessary to say of a new Christmas volume of tales ..." --so begins a brief notice, The Examiner 1859-01-15 p15, no earlier review found
  
  Ghost Stories and Family Legends is the running title, and the top heading on page 1 (viewed at HathiTrust). It is used in the three publisher advertisements cited here, and none were found 2019-11-20 by automated search for "Ghosts and Family Legends".
  
  "The Prediction" precedes "Haunted Houses" in the Contents list, but there is no plausible candidate other than two paragraphs, pp. 104-05. And as a descriptive title "The Justification" fits only the next two paragraphs, 105-06, rather than the remainder of the Sixth Evening--mainly another account, not the frame narrative.
  
  Data originally from a Google Books scan. • title page imprint (two lines, all caps):   Thomas Cautley Newby, Publisher,   Welbeck Street, Cavendish Square. • title page byline credits 'Mrs. Crowe, authoress of "Night Side of Nature," &c.'; the preface closes 'Catherine Crowe.' and '15th October, 1858.'