AMERICANA AFTER 1820

Gaboriau & Corelli — Mystery & Romance

•  Uncommon Chicago reprint of this mystery, translated from the French; the title work is followed by Marie Correlli's short story "The Hired Baby: A Romance of the London Streets." In a beautifully preserved decorative cloth binding. (What you may think is a cracked hinge, towards the left of the picture, is actually a bit of the cream-colored spine decoration, showing. Once you know this, it's clear! — but until you do, the eye can be well confused.)

•  Publisher's cloth, front cover and spine stamped in green, white, and gilt with arabesque designs; binding cocked, otherwise showing next to no wear. Owner's name, partially erased, inked on the front free endpaper. (12602)

Evocative Overview

•  First edition: Scarce and important indexes, with summaries. There were two issues, this being the one issued without the 76-page appendix.
Click the interior image for an enlargement.

•  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

Click the interior images for enlargements.

•  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)

Civil War Narrative

•  Uncommon first edition: A Northern soldier captured at the Battle of Shiloh describes his sufferings while imprisoned at Andersonville, and his travels through Confederate states following his temporary escape (which ended when he was run down by bloodhounds!). The volume is illustrated with a steel-engraved frontispiece portrait of the author and with five other plates; the Rev. Alexander Clark contributed an introduction. Click the images for enlargements.

•  Library Company, Afro-Americana, 4057; Sabin 26835.   Contemporary half brown sheep and yellow marbled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped title and band decorations; rubbed and spine head with strip of dark cloth tape extending onto sides. Ex–social club library with its bookplate; call number on endpaper, title-page and several others rubber-stamped. Scattered spots of light staining. In fact a nice-looking and sound copy.  (26397)

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

Click the images for enlargements.

•  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

Click the images for enlargements.

•  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!

Click the interior images for enlargements.

•  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.

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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 portion torn away, back free endpaper lacking; waterstaining in varying degrees to lower outer corners after p. 120. One signature extruded.  (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.

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.

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.

A“TEXIAN” Survivor's Narrative — 13 Maps & Plates

•  First edition: Important first-person account of the Texan Mier Expedition, written by a general in the Texas Army during the war for independence from Mexico, later a general in the Confederate Army. Gen. Green was the leader of one of the war's most disastrous raiding expeditions into Mexico, an ill-starred exploit which resulted in much suffering on the part of the captured troops, one out of every 10 of whom were executed in the infamous Black Bean Lottery incident. Here he describes the military events leading up to the expedition, the expedition itself, and the unfortunate aftermath. Click the images for enlargements.

The volume is illustrated with a total of 13 steel-engraved plates, including a frontispiece and two maps, most taken from drawings done by Charles McLaughlin, “a fellow prisoner.”

•  Howes G371; Sabin 28562; Streeter, Texas, 1581.   Publisher's speckled sheep, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label; worn and stained, spine head reinforced with dark cloth tape extending onto boards. Ex–social club library: 19th-century bookplate on front pastedown, call number on front endpapers, rubber- and pressure-stamps on title-page. Plates variously lightly waterstained; folding map of Rio Alcantra with outer half torn away and edge tattered. Pages with minor age-toning and occasional stains.  (26394)

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)

“The Great Problem of Hieroglyphics”:
   Champollion Explained toEnglish Speakers

Click the images for enlargements.

•  First edition in English, translated from the French by Isaac Stuart and here with an introduction from the Rev. Moses Stuart, a prominent biblical scholar as well as the translator's father. Greppo here expounds on Champollion's groundbreaking discoveries in the history and translation of hieroglyphics, with additional notes and content provided by Stuart. Two plates at the back of the volume depict hieroglyphics and compare the “pure,” hieratic, and demotic forms.

•  American Imprints 1679; Allibone 2292.   Publisher's red cloth, faded and discolored, recently rebacked preserving original spine label and as much of original spine cloth as possible; spine label darkened with chip. Ex–social club library: 19th-century bookplate, pressure-stamp on title-page, no other markings. Page edges untrimmed; pages moderately age-toned, otherwise clean. In fact quite a decent copy.  (26382)

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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