Full Title:

Title page recto: [cancel] THE RIVET | IN GRANDFATHER'S | NECK | A Comedy of Limitations | BY | JAMES BRANCH CABELL | [in italic] "To this new South, who values her high | past, in chief, as fit foundation of that edifice | whereon she labors day by day, and with | augmenting strokes." | LONDON | McBRIDE, NAST & COMPANY LTD. | ROLLS HOUSE, BREAMS BLDGS., E.C. (see image above).

Title page verso: blank

Publication:

London: McBride, Nast & Co.; 1915

Collation:

Crown octavo [21 cm. (8¼ in.) x 14.4 cm. (5⅝ in.)]; pp. 368 (first 12 un-numbered); (1) half title; (2) Books by Mr. Cabell; (3) title page (verso blank); (5) Dedication (verso blank); (7) Contents (verso blank); (9) Untitled note (verso blank); (11) fly-title; (12) sonnet, Paul Verville, Nascitur (JBC); 13-368 text. Pages (1), (45), (79), (115), (163), (191), (241), (273), (319), and (353) are fly-titles; pages (78), (114), (240), and (272) are blank.

Binding:

Blue-grey cloth; gilt lettering and decorations on spine; black lettering and decorations on front and rear covers; all edges trimmed. Spine: THE RIVET | IN GRAND- | FATHER'S | NECK | JAMES BRANCH | CABELL | [McBride, Nast shield device]. Front cover: [all enclosed in a blind stamped single ruled box] THE RIVET | IN GRANDFATHER'S | NECK | JAMES BRANCH CABELL | [lower right, McBride, Nast device]. Rear cover: [lower left, McBride, Nast device]. (see image above).

Dedication:

TO | PRISCILLA BRADLEY CABELL | [14 line dedicatory verse in two stanzas] (see image above).

Notes:

First English edition, printed from imported sheets. The collation is identical to Riv-A1 except for the title page recto and verso, which is a cancel, as it is in the 2nd English edition, Riv-B2 (E).

Bibliographic information on this printing is scarce.

The earliest (and one of the most detailed) reference we've located so far is in Guy Holt's A Bibliography of the Writings of James Branch Cabell (1924), p.28. His description of the first printing binding is accurate, but he also lists the binding of the 1916 second McBride, Nast printing without realizing that this is actually a second printing.

 

We find it odd that I.R. Brussel, in his A Bibliography of the Writings of James Branch Cabell: A Revised Bibliography (1932), which is after all an update of Holt's work, fails to mention the English issue at all. This is the case, however.

Frances Brewer, in her James Branch Cabell: A Bibliography of his Writings, Biography and Criticism (1957), p. 34, acknowledges that it exists, but nothing more.

 

In the main bibliographical section of his JAMES BRANCH CABELL - A Complete Bibliography (1974), p. 59, James Hall lists only the first McBride, Nast printing.

At the end of the book, though, in a section titled LAST MINUTE ADDENDA, p. 245, he adds the second printing from 1916.

More detail on both this printing and the 1917 McBride, Nast printing of The Certain Hour, CH-B1 (E), would be helpful. If any reader can supply more information, it would be greatly appreciated.