Traditions of Devonshire a 3 volume set by Anna Bray first editions 1838

BRAY (Anna Eliza, Mrs Stothard). Traditions, Legends, Superstitions, and Sketches of Devonshire on the Borders of the Tamar and the Tavy, in a Series of Letters to Robert Southey, Esq.
 
London: John Murray, Albemarle Street, 1838.
 
Three volumes, 8vo (130 × 210 mm). Vol. I: 394 pp.; Vol. II: 356 pp.; Vol. III: 373 pp. Original publisher’s brown blind-stamped cloth, spines lettered gilt. Pages rough-cut and untrimmed.
Light wear to spine ends, minor bumps to edges, light surface marking to the cloth, with short splits to joints. Internally clean. Contemporary ownership inscriptions. A clean, bright and unrestored set. Very good.
 
First edition of Mrs Bray’s celebrated study of West-Country folklore and antiquities, written in epistolary form to her friend and poet laureate, Robert Southey.
 
A cornerstone of early Victorian regional writing, blending local antiquities with supernatural lore — ghosts, pixies, witches, druid stones and haunted tors populate her accounts of Dartmoor and the Tamar valley. It remains one of the most atmospheric nineteenth-century studies of Devonshire’s folk traditions and is the author’s key works.