London: Severn House, 1987.

Signed, limited edition first UK edition hardback. Numbered 5 of 50. 218pp, last three pages blank, 8vo.

Front endpiece reads “This is one of a special limited edition of fifty copies only, produced exclusively for the Andromeda Bookshop”. After making an impression on the genre scene with horror books A Nest of Nightmares and Familiar Spirit, as well as her George R. R. Martin collaboration Windhaven, Tuttle wrote this slim, deeply eerie novel following a young woman who becomes convinced that her deceased husband has returned to her in the form of a small boy named Ben. An unconventional ghost story, Gabriel is of a piece with Tuttle’s later short novels such as The Pillow Friend and My Death; utilising the horror form to plumb the depths of the female psyche. From the opening page: “His name was Gabriel Archer, and he was my husband for eleven months. He died at twenty-three, a few days before my nineteenth birthday. Ten years later, on my twenty-ninth birthday, he came back to haunt me.”

Glossy dustjacket features a colour illustration on the cover and a short list of “Further Horror Fiction From Severn House” on the back. Back of dustjacket has some light scratches. Blue leather binding, specific to this limited edition, with gold lettering on spine. A fine copy.