•  Publisher's quarter cloth with illustrated paper sides. Inside front hinge weak and paper split due to nature of binding. Else, sound. (3595)

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•  Publisher's maroon cloth, front cover with gilt-stamped title and vignette of an invalid, spine with gilt-stamped title; minor wear to edges and extremities, spine with small area of discoloration at head. Ex–social club library with one of its most attractive bookplates on front pastedown, title-page pressure-stamped, small inked numeral on dedication page, no other library markings. Front free endpaper with early pencilled ownership inscription. Pages slightly age-toned, otherwise clean.  (27183)

•  Recent paper wrappers. Reverse of the title-page and one other page with institutional stamps; a few pages with pencilled marginalia, otherwise clean.

Illustrated with four color plates done by Max and Louis N. Rosenthal of the famed Philadelphia firm Rosenthal's

•  Allibone 2641. Not in Reese, Stamped with a National Character.   Publisher's blind-stamped green cloth, spine with gilt-stamped title; spine sunned, chipped at head, and with small darkened area. Ex–social club library: Call number on front pastedown, front free endpaper lacking, title-page and several others (not plates) with old, round, light rubber-stamp. Pages age-toned, otherwise clean.  (26420)

•  Publisher's brown cloth, front cover and spine with gilt-stamped title; binding slightly cocked, corners and spine extremities rubbed, gilt partially oxidized (quiet attractively). Back hinge tender. Front fly-leaf with early pencilled ownership inscription. Early portions of text with pencilled emphasis marks and some underlining. All edges red. A nifty period piece.  (20333)

•  Garrison B15. Publisher’s printed paper–covered boards, darkened, most notably over spine. Front free endpaper with pencilled owner’s name. Pages slightly age-toned.

•  Garrison A45.1.a, binding A, jacket A. Publisher’s blue cloth, front cover and spine stamped in gold, in original printed paper dustwrapper with price; binding clean and unworn save for minor wear to spine extremities, dustjacket with cream portions slightly darkened and small edge nicks to front panel and spine.

This is an original edition, not a facsimile reprint.

Binding:  Publisher's light blue cloth, front cover pictorially stamped in black and gilt with scene of an angel holding a chain and the key to the bottomless pit (Revelation 20:1), spine decoratively stamped in black and gilt.

•  Binding as above, cocked, spine slightly sunned, corners and spine extremities with minor rubbing; small smudge to outer upper edge of front cover. Front pastedown with inked inscription dated 1916. A few corners dog-eared; four pages with offsetting from now-absent laid-in items, pages otherwise clean. All edges marbled.  (25796)

•  NSTC 2W17788.   Original wrappers, front wrapper chipped at edges, back wrapper chipped at inner edge and with paper remnants affixed at top. Leaves loose (wrappers included). Long tear in fore-margin of title-leaf and small chips in inner margins of title- and final leaves. Some short marginal tears. Small chips to lower outer margins. Lengthwise fold mark. (8931)

Binding:  Publisher's deeply waved terra-cotta cloth of Krupp's style Wav6, front cover with gilt-stamped title and blind-stamped frame.

•  Binding: Krupp, Bookcloth in England and America, 1823--50, p. 43.   Binding as above, corners/edges slightly rubbed and spine pulled at top; interior with an upper corner bumped. A very attractive, clean copy.  (26714)

•  Publisher's quarter cloth with printed and illustrated sides. Endpapers printed. Covers soiled, worn over edges, corners bumped. Hinges (inside) reinforced, covers a bit wobbly. Complete. Good overall. (6090)

With an advertisement on the back for "Wilkes's Spirit of the Times. The American Gentleman's Newspaper. A Chronicle of the Turf, Field Sports, the Army and the Stage."

•  Miles 485. Original wrappers. Removed from a nonce volume.

•  Not in Library Company, Afro-Americana (rev. ed.).   Recent red cloth with black leather spine label. Library pressure-stamp (defunct library) in margin of one page. A delicate book, as one must expect given the place and date of publication. Old stab holes in inner margins.  (26097)

Willis himself was the founder of the magazine that became the Home Journal, and was celebrated in his day for his essays and travel writings as well as several collections of his journalistic work. The Cambridge History of American Literature calls him the “prince of magazinists,” and remarks on “the evanescent sparkle and glancing brilliance” of A L'abri, later known as Letters from under a Bridge. These charming, witty essays touch on Willis's Yale education (and its lack of practical application!); fishing; a dinner with Lady Blessington, Benjamin Disraeli, Count D'Orsay, and Lord Durham; the possibility of local railroad construction to connect the Hudson with Lake Erie; the relationship of American to British literature, etc. Whatever the ostensible topics of the individual letters, each touches in affectionate and amusing fashion on some aspect of life in the Susquehanna region.

A publishing practice, demonstrated: Bound in at the back of this volume are yellow printed paper wrappers for John Smith's Letters, and the title-page and preface for Fireside Education — both items published by Colman in the same year as the present work.

•  BAL 22752 (spine label in first state, cloth described as “Brown S cloth “); American Imprints 59260; Fearing, Check List of Books on Angling, Fishing, Fisheries, Fish-Culture, etc., 135; Sabin 104504. On Willis, see: Cambridge History of American Literature online.   Publisher's brown cloth embossed with floret and dash pattern, spine with printed paper label; corners rubbed, and spine cloth chipped with paper label chipped and darkened. Front free endpaper with early pencilled ownership inscription. Foxing throughout; occasional pencilled marginalia and marks of emphasis.  (25806)

This work is rarely found in the deluxe binding: The handsomely gilt-stamped publisher's cloth is the norm.

•  NSTC 2W24418; Allibone 2762.   Binding as above, showing minor wear to extremities and front cover vignette, original silk bookmark detached and laid in. Volume slightly shaken with text block starting to pull away from spine; this is the kind of volume that wants to do that, and the reader will want to “cradle” it in hand — that done, no worries. Front fly-leaf with early pencilled gift inscription and with a Maine druggist's small ticket. Mild to moderate foxing. Both funny and decorative, in an American publisher's binding that may fairly be called “DAZZLING.”  (26748)

•  Cahoon, 56. Boards, printed label. Fine, without printed dust jacket, as issued.

•  Publisher's terra-cotta cloth, front cover pictorially stamped in black and back cover in blind, spine with gilt-stamped decorative title; front cover with single streak of discoloration, extremities very slightly rubbed. Front hinge (inside) cracked. Ex–social club library: shelving label on spine, call number on endpaper, rubber-stamp on title-page and one other, no other markings. Pages age-toned, otherwise clean.  (27381)

•  Folded, never bound. Uncut, mostly unopened.  (456)

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The printed Career is followed in this little volume by an extended manuscript section containing neatly written excerpts from Wooley’s Science of the Bible or an Analysis of the Hebrew Mythology.

•  Contemporary half calf over textured cloth, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label and gilt-ruled raised bands; front cover detached, leather scuffed. All page edges marbled. Upper portion of front free endpaper torn away; two front fly-leaves partially excised. Back free endpaper with pencilled owner’s name. Printed portion very slightly age-toned, with faint creasing to first section.

•  Whaton & Kelly 6655; Cagle & Stafford, American Books on Food and Drink, 840.   Publisher's ribbed brown cloth, covers elaborately embossed in blind. Ex–social club library: 19th-century bookplate, call number on endpaper, lacking the front free endpaper, pressure-stamp on title-page, no other markings. A rather handsome book, and one in nice condition.  (26509)