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The Cardinal's Snuff-Box — cover
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Aeneas Press edition Victorian

The Cardinal's Snuff-Box

by Henry Harland 1861–1905

The book, and the century it came out of.

An English novelist takes a villa in the Italian lakes to write, and finds his neighbor is a duchess, his gardener’s daughter is not what she seems, and the local cardinal has a snuff-box and an eye for a plot. Harland edited The Yellow Book, the quarterly that defined the 1890s and then buried them; this sunlit comedy was his bestseller and the opposite of everything he had published. Illustrated with 54 full-page plates — paintings by Blechen, Stading and Dubourcq among them.

“The Signorino will take coffee?” old Marietta asked, as she set the fruit before him.
The first sentence of The Cardinal's Snuff-Box
A note on this edition

The Cardinal's Snuff-Box, by Henry Harland, complete and unabridged. Spelling and punctuation follow present-day American usage; the sentences, the paragraphs and the voice are the author’s, word for word.

It was written in another era and may carry attitudes a reader today will find dated. They are kept for the sake of the work and do not reflect the views of this house.

The edition
Format
Ebook
Extent
about 160 pages
Reading time
about 3 hours
Illustrations
Full-page plates, credited
Text
Complete, unabridged
Language
en
This edition
2026
ISBN
9785486106781
The plates

54 paintings are bound into this edition

Six of them are shown here, taken from the volume itself. Each is reproduced full page and named with its painter and year.

In the park of Villa Borghese, Carl Blechen
In the park of Villa Borghese Carl Blechen 1837
Italienische Landschaft, Josef Rebell
Italienische Landschaft Josef Rebell 1827
A Little Boy being Presented to a Priest, Ernst Meyer
A Little Boy being Presented to a Priest Ernst Meyer 1846
From Capri, Thomas Fearnley
From Capri Thomas Fearnley 1833
View of a Villa, Pizzofalcone, Naples, Lancelot Théodore Turpin de Crissé
View of a Villa, Pizzofalcone, Naples Lancelot Théodore Turpin de Crissé 1819
Evening: Landscape with an Aqueduct, Théodore Géricault
Evening: Landscape with an Aqueduct Théodore Géricault 1818
The setting

A page from this edition

Not a mock-up: this page is taken from the finished volume. The ornament above the chapter belongs to its shelf and to no other, the opening letter is set as a drop capital, and the plate below carries the name of the painter and the year.

A page of The Cardinal's Snuff-Box as set for this edition
The opening of a chapter
A page of The Cardinal's Snuff-Box as set for this edition
A page where a plate falls

Both photographed from the finished volume.

Colophon

The Cardinal's Snuff-Box, issued in this edition by Aeneas Press in 2026 on the Love & Society shelf. Newly set, with the ornament of its series above each chapter and a drop capital on the opening page. Illustrated with full-page plates, each named with its painter.

Published as an ebook and not issued in print by this house; it carries one ISBN, 9785486106781, and is supplied worldwide. This edition — its setting, its ornament, its cover art, and the selection and attribution of its plates — © 2026 Aeneas Press.

Before you buy

Questions readers ask

Is this the whole of The Cardinal's Snuff-Box?
Yes — complete and unabridged. Nothing is cut, condensed or paraphrased. This is the book, not a summary of it.
What exactly did you change?
The spelling and the punctuation follow present-day American usage. Henry Harland's sentences are untouched — same words, same order, same rhythm.
Are the pictures really in the book?
Yes. The edition carries full-page plates bound into the text, each one named with its painter and the year it was made. Six of them are shown on this page.
How long is it?
About 160 pages, which is roughly about 3 hours of reading.
What do I actually get?
An illustrated ebook with its own ISBN, sold worldwide. One file, yours to keep, readable on any device.
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The Cardinal's Snuff-Box
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