Madame Butterfly, Purple Eyes, A Gentleman of Japan and a Lady, Kito, Glory

New York: Century, 1898. First Book Edition. Hardcover. Very Good/No dust jacket as issued. Duodecimo. 7 x 4.5 inches. Original pictorial paper over green cloth. 224 pp. Top edge gilt. Pages rough-cut. First Book Edition. Omnibus of five short stories. Canted. Paper-covered boards rubbed and edgeworn. Some browning, notably to backstrip. Tips bumped and worn through. Text block edges slightly browned. Early gift inscription inked on ffep. Else, interior clean and unmarked. The story, “Madame Butterfly,” was first published in the January 1898 issue of The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine. It was issued very soon thereafter in book form, along with four other short stories by the same author, then adapted by David Belasco as a one-act stage play that premiered in New York in 1900. The subsequent London production of the play was attended by composer Giacomo Puccini, who took the story as the basis for his opera, Madama Butterfly, with an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. Quite scarce in the market . (Inventory #: 311)