AMERICANA AFTER 1820

Evocative Overview

•  First edition: Scarce and important indexes, with summaries. There were two issues, this being the one issued without the 76-page appendix.
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•  Sabin 55624. Original printed paper front wrapper (only, and detached; back wrapper lacking); wrapper torn, with inked inscription in upper margin. Wrapper, title-page, and next four leaves gnawed by a rodent with loss to printed border of wrapper and a letter or two on the title-page — main text not affected. Pages creased, with some instances of light spotting.

Do It Yourself! — PAINT a Farm Wagon or a Drawing Room

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•  First edition. The front cover proclaims “Every Man His Own Painter,” and Gardner obliges with Victorian-era how-tos (some illustrated) for “satisfactory results in plain and fancy painting of every description, including gilding, bronzing, staining, graining, marbling, varnishing, polishing, kalsomining, paper-hanging, striping, lettering, copying, and ornamenting.” The volume closes with a series of advertisements for contemporary crazes including decalcomanie goods, phrenological books and journals, and hydropathic cookbooks.

Provenance:  Pencilled ownership inscriptions of W. G. Benton.

Rare in the first edition, with only one copy located via OCLC and none added by NUC Pre-1956.

•  Publisher's brown pebbled cloth, front cover and spine with gilt-stamped title; rubbed overall, edges darkened, spine extremities chipped. Front hinge (inside) cracked; front pastedown and free endpaper with pencilled ownership inscriptions; front fly-leaf partially excised. Light foxing variably throughout.  (24377)

Who Are Your Real Friends? — What is REAL Love?

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•  First edition, illustrated by J.N. Marchand.

•  Publisher's cloth, front cover and spine stamped in white, black, orange, and gilt; lacking the dust jacket, with binding slightly cocked, spine stamping a bit dimmed. Front free endpaper with inked ownership inscription.  (13027)

The Modern Grandma

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•  Illustrated. The Frigidaire Electric Range will change your life.

•  Original printed wrappers. Lightly soiled, front cover chipped.  (29892)

CORNERSTONE for anAMERICAN SPORTING LIBRARY

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•  The first American illustrated sporting book and the first American sporting book written by an American.  Only one sporting book published in America preceded it: The Sportsman's Companion (NY,1783; later editions Burlington [NJ], 1791, and Philadelphia, 1793), “by a gentleman, who has made shooting his favorite amusement upwards of twenty-six years, in Great-Britain, Ireland, and North-America.”

Kester deals almost exclusively with game birds and waterfowl native to the Delaware Valley that surrounds Philadelphia: wild turkeys, partridge, snipe, quail, grouse, and ducks. With regard to rifles and guns he addresses cleaning, powder, wadding, etc. And when writing about dogs, in addition to notes on training and conditioning them, he offers recipes for common ailments and gun-shot wounds.

The plates are signed “F. Kearny,” an artist born in Perth Amboy, NJ, who studied drawing with Archibald and Alexander Robertson and engraving with Peter Maverick. From 1810 to his death in 1833 he practiced engraving in Philadelphia.

There are two states of gathering “U”: this copy has the typographical error “tibbon” with the stop-press correction to “ribbon” on p. 235.

The volume ends with advertisements for several sporting and fishing goods suppliers.

•  Shoemaker 27838; Howes K108; Henderson, American Sporting Books, 6; Phillips, Sporting Books, 21; Streeter Sale 4084; Bennett, Practical Guide, 60–61. On Stauffer, American Engravers, I, 148–49.   Publisher's sprinkled sheep with simple rope roll in blind on board edges, some abrasion to leather; round spine with gilt double rules forming “spine compartments,” black leather title label. The usual light and scattered foxing noted in all copies, nothing more. A very nice copy.  (28553)

Acts on theCusp of Secession

Georgia.

•  The acts in this volume were enacted just prior to Georgia's secession from the Union on 19 January 1861. Some concern black slaves and free blacks, others the state's asylums, schools, courts, and towns. Having been published following Secession, this is one of the earliest confederate imprints published in the Peach state.

•  De Renne, II, 630; Parrish & Willingham 2777. Recent blue-gray boards. Old library stamps in some margins. A clean, tight copy.

In Italian & English — New York Theater Giacometti, Paolo. Elizabeth, Queen of England, an historical play in five acts. Written expressly...for Madame Ristori, and her dramatic company, under the management of J. Grau. New York: John A. Gray & Green, 1867. 8vo. 40 pp.
$80.00

•  Early American printing of this historical drama, in which Elizabeth is presented as a willful woman prone to conflicting impulses. The text is given in both Italian and English (in a translation by Thomas Williams), with a cast list.

•  Fair in printed paper wrappers, front cover lacking, sewing starting to go.

For more THEATER/THEATRE,
                some other PROGRAMS & PLAYBILLS included, 
click here.

New York BANKING — In Essence *&* at Point of Crisis

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•  First edition. This authoritative, interesting overview of the banking industry in the 19th century is illustrated with30 wood-engraved plates by Henry Herrick: expressive depictions of bank employees, customers, and their interactions. Gibbons, a financier by trade and a Quaker abolitionist, provides an excellent “picture of the banks of New York as they are” (p. v) — often by way of “you are there” conversations, including, on p. 95, a vigorous, decision-making interchange as to backinga house “too important . . . to be allowed to go down.”

Basic banking principles, procedures, and roles are carefully and memorably explained, as are the functioning of the (new) Clearing House; the author notes that covering the latter, and the Panic, has increased the length of his volume by a third.

•  Sabin 27289; not in Goldsmiths'-Kress.   Publisher's blind-stamped textured cloth, spine with gilt-stamped title and pictorial vignette; binding cocked, extremities rubbed, spine sunned. Ex–social club library: call numbers on endpaper, front free endpaper excised, pressure-stamp on title-page, two other pages rubber-stamped, no other markings. Some plates with small areas of staining to margins.  (26638)

What You Saw Depended on
Where You Stood

•  Giddings sees the attack on Sen. Sumner as an attack on free speech and the free debate of the Senate. He points out the differences in interpretation of events expressed by Senators from the slave-holding states and the free states.

•  Removed from a nonce volume; respined with archival tissue. (576)

Industrial *&* Domestic Arts in Ancient Times
  Illustrated, Informative, Very Prettily Bound

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•  Attractive early edition of a work originally published under the title The History of Silk, Cotton, Linen, Wool, and Other Fibrous Substances Including Observations on Spinning, Dyeing, and Weaving. This is an interestingly eclectic survey of the products of silkworms and spiders in addition to “attainments in the domestic arts, including spinning, dyeing, weaving, tapestry, lace, and embroidery: Also, their jeweled garments, and fabrics of gold, purple, scarlet, silver, &c. &c. With appendices on felting; on Babylonish garments, shawls, and quilts; on Persian gold lace and jewelry; on paper; on netting; on hunting, fishing, &c.” The English author Gilroy is perhaps best remembered for a fraud he perpetrated, in which he claimed that complex weaving machinery had been discovered in the ruins of Carthage!

This volume is illustrated with10 steel-engraved plates and one hand-colored map.

•  NSTC 2G8697; Goldsmiths'-Kress 34096.14 (for earlier ed.).   Publisher's green textured cloth, front cover with gilt-stamped vignette of a girl in ethnic dress holding a spindle, spine with gilt-stamped title and sheep, moth, and goat motifs; corners and spine extremities lightly rubbed, spine gilt rubbed in spots, covers with small spots of discoloration. All edges gilt. Ex–social club library with its old round rubber-stamp on title-page, recto of one plate, and two other pages; call number on endpapers; no other markings. Scattered faint spots of foxing, pages mostly clean.  (27720)

Verse for Volunteers — 8 Demonstration/PORTRAIT Plates
INTERESTING for a BUNCH of REASONS!

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•  First edition: A drill manual set in verse, with illustrations. Here are some instructions for marching by the flank: “‘By the right flank — MARCH,’ you get command; / At first, the sergeants place themselves on line, / At march, the men at a right face will stand, / And move at once, at quick or double time” (p. 125). The volume includes a frontispiece and eight plates, which are drawings of officers from the 31st New York Regiment (and other units) demonstrating the manual of arms. One plate shows Lieut. Kline holding his rifle at shoulder arms; while another plate has Capt. David Lamb at attention; and yet another plate shows Capt. Ned Johnson at guard (against cavalry). The frontispiece is a portrait of Col. John A. Godfrey.

Held in most of the expectable libraries but currently uncommon in commerce.

•  Sabin 70769. Recent black moiré cloth, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label. Title-page and several others rubber-stamped by a now-defunct institution. Pages clean.

  A PRB&M “FEATURED BOOK”  —
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A Very Broad Range of Natural History & Philosophy,
in(Just) Two Volumes

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•  First U.S. edition of this general overview of natural history, science, learning, and philosophy written by a British physician, scholar, and linguist remembered for his blank verse translation of Lucretius. The work was originally presented as a series of lectures at the Surrey Institution, 1811–12; it includes sections on geology; zoological systems; animal vs. vegetable life; circulation and digestion; mesmerism (under “Sympathy and Fascination”); literary education in the classical, medieval, and Renaissance eras; sleep, dreaming, and trance; the nature of the soul; and physiognomy and craniognomy, among other topics.

•  Shoemaker 24712.   Contemporary speckled sheep, spines with gilt-stamped black leather title-labels, board edges cornered with gilt roll; bindings scuffed and worn overall, partially darkened, gilt mostly lost. Ex–social club library: paper shelving label at spine heads, 19th-century bookplates, call number on fly-leaves with an inked library ownership inscription joining that in vol. II, no other markings. Vol. I: front hinge (inside) tender; one leaf with tear from lower margin, extending into text without loss. A few scattered stains and smudges, pages largely clean.  (29888)

For a little more SCIENCE,  click here.
For NATURAL HISTORY,  click here.

Just a LOT of Fun — Lots to Learn, Too

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•  “The object of this work is not to play upon credulity, or minister food to superstition. . . . The actual Wonders of the World often surpass the boldest tales of fiction, and excite the emotions of admiration, wonder, and sympathy, even more strongly than the fabulous stories of romance.” These dramatic stories describe curiosities and quirks of nature around the world. The first volume closes witheight pages of plates, each bearing three images of geological, natural, and architectural wonders.

“Hours of innocent amusement!”

•  Publisher's full sheep, spines with gilt-stamped Greek key bands and gilt-stamped leather title labels; abraded, chipped, all covers loose, one vol. lacking spine label. Vol. II lacks title-leaf and pp. iii-iv of the index. Ex–social club library, where it was apparently popular: 19th-century bookplate, call number on endpaper of each volume, pressure-stamp on both title-pages of vol. I and on p. v of vol. II; no other markings. Some short tears to edges of some leaves; pages with scattered smudges, spots, and a few early inked doodles.  (26361)

Illustrated Anecdotal Natural History — Two Substantial Volumes

Goodrich, Samuel G.

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•  First edition. This is a natural history for the common reader, combining “something of the sternness of science with the license of the describer, the narrator, and the anecdotist” — and the illustrator, these volumes being richly illustrated with1400 wood engravings, including 28 full-page. The first of the two illustrated title-pages — a full double-page spread — is signed “Lossing ... Barritt” [sic], for the wood-engravers Benson John Lossing and William Barritt, whose New York firm Lossing joined in 1846. Theirs was the largest wood-engraving business in New York until Lossing retired in 1869.

Samuel Griswold Goodrich (1793–1860), a.k.a.Peter Parley, was a major 19th-century children's book author, and editor of the illustrated annual The Token. He published this Illustrated Natural History upon returning to America after a few years living in Paris.

Evidence of readership: Engravings of two in-text birds on one page in vol. I partially colored neatly by hand in red and blue, and at least two annotations in an early hand.

•  Sabin 27904.   Full recent tan cloth with gilt leather spine labels, clean and neat. Ex–social club library with old inked stamps, including to title-pages, no other markings. Otherwise, save between two pages where something once was laid in and in the index where a few leaves show a little soiling, chipping, or tearing to margins and one displays an old repair, only the odd small inkstain or short marginal tear and the gentlest of age-toning. A remarkably clean and fresh set.  (30144)

Hand-ColoredFloral Frontispiece

•  Reprint of the 1838 “Token” gift book, with different plates and a hand-colored floral frontispiece offering pink roses. One of the four uncolored plates is of a “Young American in the Alps,” by Healey and engraved by Cushman; another and this cataloguer's favorite, “Sun Set on the Hudson,” is by Weir, engraved by J.A. Ralph.

Binding:  Publisher's red cloth, covers and spine gilt-stamped with avian and foliate designs; all edges gilt.

•  Faxon 786.   Spine and edges moderately rubbed with front hinge cracked; spots of staining to bottom part of front cover. Front free endpaper with good portion torn away, back free endpaper lacking; waterstaining in varying degrees to lower outer corners after p. 120 and some soiling. One signature extruded and others heading for that; one plate shaved very very close to image at top but image itself not quite touched! Not a fresh copy, still, an interesting one. (12944)

One of the Special Copies

•  No. 156 out of 200 special numbered copies (out of a total edition of 650) containing “an extra page of supplementary information identifying the work to which Mr. Goudy has assigned those serial numbers which are missing from the chronological table.”

•  Publisher’s quarter tan cloth over black paper–covered sides, front cover with black- and red-printed paper label, in original glassine dustwrapper; clean and unworn. An elegant book.

SomeoneUSED This

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•  Binding: Publisher's green cloth stamped in gold.

Evidence of use/readership: Some hymns marked for use, a handwritten index inside front cover, and many added hymns tipped in from a different hymnal.

•  Bound as above, hinges cracked, front free endpaper missing. With some small staining and a limited section of pages tattered along bottom edge; “personalizations” as above.  (2392)

Spanish as aSecond Language, 1835

•  Dissident Latin American writers of the 19th century found it convenient to have their controversial writings printed in the U.S.  Juan de la Granja, a native of Spain who spent time as a merchant in Mexico before being expelled following Mexican independence, was a successful printer of Spanish-language books, periodicals, and a newspaper in New York City in the 1830s, before returning to Mexico to establish the first telegraph in that nation. His press printed more than a few political hot-topic books but he also printed bread and butter books like this one, designed specifically “Para el uso de las escuelas, y particularmente dedicados á la juventud que aprende el castellano, con cuyo objecto ha procurado el editor mezclar lo útil con lo dulce.” Click the images for enlargements.

Provenance:  Early 19th-century ownership signatures on front free endpaper of Anthony Coe Ogilvie and E.H.(?) Ogilvie.

•  American Imprints 31923. Not in Palau.   Publisher’s quarter cloth with paper-covered sides; binding waterspotted. Scattered light foxing. A good copy.  (26144)

AMHERST   

•  First edition.

•  Publisher's cloth, issued without dust jacket. Dust soiling and one spot of discoloration on the binding. Very good condition.

American Annexes, Illustrated

•  First edition of this collection of articles describing the United States' most recent territorial acquisitions, from the “Youth's Companion” educational series. Covered here are “Porto Rico,” Manila, Hawaii, Samoa, Guam, the Midway Islands, Wake Island, and the Guano Islands; the volume is as notable for its cheerful racism – this of the “breathtaking ethnic generalization from superior perspective” sort, not the name-calling sort – as it is for its numerous engravings and halftone photographs.

Binding:  Publisher's green cloth, front cover with palm tree vignette stamped in dark green and title in maroon, spine likewise.

•  Binding as above, all but unworn. Front free endpaper with early inked ownership inscription. Pages clean.  (28950)

AnAbolition Sermon (1836)

•  First edition: Call to action for the abolition of slavery, by a prominent reformer who served as president of both the Oneida Institute and the American Anti-Slavery Society and who here argues that citizens of the North are as morally responsible as those of the South in addressing the issues of slavery.

The author, a pastor and educator, was one of the most determined abolition activists in the United States; the DAB notes that while his dedication to the cause led to the closing of many doors in his career, his sermons on the subject “attracted wide attention,” contributing greatly to the catalyzing of American Christian opposition to slavery.

•  On Green, see: Dictionary of American Biography, VII, 539–40. Sabin 28512. Recent wrappers. Foxing throughout.

Poetry from Springfield, Massachusetts
     &  the “Mansion” Hotel at Pas'comuck

•  First edition: Verses from a poet and journalist whose work was, in its day, considered to “most faithfully embody the genuine spirit of New England country life” (New England Homestead, 1881). Sickness is a theme here, along with the pain of it bravely borne; and the last piece expresses the hope that “all the allopaths” would vanish from the earth and that only “pleasant herbs” and “mild botanics” be given to the sick, rather than calomel and drugs. Click the images for enlargements.

The volume is illustrated with a total of three wood-engraved depictions of New England buildings.

•  Publisher's pebbled terra cotta cloth, front cover and spine with gilt-stamped title; spine darkened and worn with gilt rubbed, sides with small spots of discoloration, cover gilt nice and bright. Some light smudging to margins, pages otherwise clean. All edges gilt.  (27649)

A Temperance Tome adapted forAMERICANS

•  Stated first U.S. edition, adapted for the American public and dedicated “to the officers and members of the American Temperance Societies.” This prize essay submitted to the New British and Foreign Temperance Society opens with ahistory of drinking and of “intoxicating liquors” stretching back to the Philistines, Thracians, and Babylonians, followed by discussions of the moral and physical causes of intemperance, the results of indulgence, and the efficacy of various means of quitting drinking. One of the final chapters contrasts the temperance and intemperance of the Hebrews with those of the primitive Christians; in this chapter, the author promotes the theory that many biblical references to wine actually meant unfermented, non-intoxicating grape juice. Grindrod (1811–83) was a well-known British “water cure” physician and temperance crusader. Click the images for enlargements.

•  American Imprints 40-2804; NSTC 2G23438. This ed. not in Amerine & Borg; see entry 1599 for later, 1848 ed.   Publisher's brown cloth, covers blind-stamped, spine with decorative gilt-stamped title; showing only light shelf wear. Ex–social club library: paper shelving label on spine, 19th-century bookplate and presentation plate (bequest of George Fox), call numbers on endpapers, title-page and one other rubber-stamped, no other markings. Pages lightly cockled but clean.  (28182)

A Radical Republican's CONTROVERSIAL Civil War Critique

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•  First edition: The first two volumes of Count Gurowski's widely read, influential political journal, later continued in one additional volume. This is an important first-person account of the U.S. Civil War written by a sharp-tongued, Polish-born journalist, abolitionist, and early member of the Republican Party, known for both his radical politics and his eccentric personality. The bluntly critical opinions of many prominent Republican figures, including Lincoln, Seward, and Gen. Scott, that appeared in this Diary got Gurowski fired from his job at the State Department. Harper's Weekly (5 March 1864) responded to the “criticism of an inflexible, unreasonable, brave, fanatical, sincere European republican and revolutionaire upon the conduct of a constitutional Government” by acknowledging that it was simply “an extravagant expression of opinions frequently expressed in many circles,” whose “value may be more readily apprehended when they are thus gravely set forth in print.”

•  Sabin 29319; Howes G465.   Publishers' brown cloth very close in color but Boston's textured while New York's is smooth; covers framed in blind, spines with gilt-stamped author, title, and variant place information in parallel places and in typestyles not exactly matching but very close; corners rubbed, spine extremities chipped, spine heads with small strip of brown cloth tape, vol. I with binding very slightly cocked and cloth starting to split at front joint. Ex–social club library: call number on endpapers, rubber-stamp on title-pages and two others, no other markings. Front free endpaper of vol. I lacking. Pages slightly age-toned, otherwise clean and paper good.  (26252)

TO Part XI . . .

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