Also attracting renewed interest was The Declaration of Independence: Americans and especially several entrepreneurs rediscovered the majesty of it and its wording. But it was not the Declaration as it came from a printing press that was of interest, rather it was the version indited by Charles Thomson, the Secretary of the Continental Congress. Coincidentally, this interest in the manuscript coincided with an upswing in the general upspringing writing masters and the publication of writing books that taught clerks, storekeepers, secretaries, and the interested populace how to write clearly and elegantly.

One of those entrepreneurial writing masters was Benjamin Owen Tyler and in 1818 he publishedthe first facsimile of the Declaration in its manuscript form. In 1817 he travelled to Washington and obtained the permission of Acting Secretary of State Richard Rush (son of Signer Benjamin Rush) to have access to the original manuscript so that he could engross his facsimile. As the facsimile proclaims: “The publisher designed and executed the ornamental writing, and has been particular to copy the facsimilies exact, and has also observed the same punctuation, and copied every capital as in the original.” The engraving also contains in attestation a facsimile signed statement of Richard Rush dated 10 September 10 and the seal of the Secretary of State's Office authenticating the copy.

The Tyler Declaration is not a one-to-one reproduction of the 1776 manuscript, for it incorporates decorative lettering not found in Thomson's original. But it certainly gives a feel for the original and it was a great advertising vehicle for Tyler as a writing master.

The whole LARGE production wasengraved by Peter Maverick, one of America's master engravers, and printed on paper with a few copies on parchment and at least one on silk. Many other facsimiles would follow. . .

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 46130.; Nash 87; John Bidwell, “American History in Image and Text” in Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, 1988, Vol. 98, pp. 247–302.   Document backed onto linen, edged with red linen tape, well-attached to an ebonized wood molding at head and roller at foot; age-toned or possibly showing discoloration from the mounting adhesive. One small piece of blank margin expertly readhered; some creasing. Overall very good. An impressive American document evoking not one but two significant patriotic periods, and one in safe and attractive condition for display.   (In its picture, it's hanging for the time being on one of our shop walls — comfortably!)   (29408)

The signers' facsimile signatures appear below the main italic text and within the decorative border.

Bidwell and WorldCat locateonly five institutional copies, none west of Charlottesville, VA.

•  Bidwell, “American history in image and text” (Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, v. 98, pt. 2, 1988), 15; Printing the Mind of Man 220 (for first edition).   Printed on white-coated card stock. Very Good condition.  (28506)

•  ESTC R172299; Wing (rev.) A3084B. Small portion of upper inner margin torn away. Tipped onto a leaf of 19th-century paper; now in a Mylar folder.

The present sonnet is printed on wove paper and its typography points to the ten-year period indicated. Above the drop-title isan excellent wood engraving of the Virgin of Guadalupe. The first line reads, “Y que solo el dolor y la tristura”.

Apparently not in WorldCat or NUC.

•  Not in Grajales & Burrus.   Faint age-toning; edges a little crumpled and with a few short tears. Lower outer corner torn just touching the type-ornament border. A nice surviving copy.  (30216)

We locate only the copy at Brown University.

•  As issued. Two circular wormholes, one at the left edge of the sheet and one just touching print within the outer border; pleasantly if not quite perfectly clean, and very handsome.  (30389)

the premiere of this one, as unknown as that one is famous, is stirring to visualize.

That Bello wrote this patriotic song is known, and even the first few lines were recorded for history, but beyond that the text is not recorded and is not found in his Obras completas or, apparently anywhere else.

In addition to the historic collaboration of Bello and Carreño, this fabulous document has the distinction of having been printed by Venezuela’s first press, that of Gallagher and Lamb, which only arrived in Caracas in October of 1808, and was almost certainly printed on 24 April, the day after the hymn was first sung!

This broadside seems to be completely unrecorded.  It was unknown to both Medina and Pedro Grases. Searches of NUC, WorldCat, and COPAC fail to find any copy at all, as is the case when searching the OPACs of the national libraries of Venezuela, Colombia, Spain, France, and England.

•  Not in Medina, Caracas; not in Grases, Historia de la imprenta en Venezuela; not in Villasana. As issued. Worming in foremargin, repaired. A very good copy.

•  Sutro 284.   One small pin-type wormhole, costing one letter. Very clean and nice.  (27251)

•  One leaf, printed on one side and creased from folding into six parts. Top left and bottom right corners torn. Tear to lower margin resulting in the loss of one or two words of text. (6336)

•  In good clean condition, tipped onto a leaf of 19th-century paper; now in a Mylar folder.

Printing seems to have arrived in El Salvador in 1825, placing this in the first decade of that art there.

Apparently rare: We trace no copy via NUC Pre-1956, WorldCat, CCILA, or METABASE.

•  Removed from a nonce volume. A few small holds from insect damage, a few of the few repaired with archival tissue. Old bibliographical notations in pencil in margins. Light waterstaining in upper outer corner.  (25791)

•  ESTC T168050. Now in a Mylar folder; edges slightly ragged, repair at lower inner margin just touching letters on one side, small holes in lower center with loss of a few letters. Some letters in header cut off at top due to printer’s error. Tipped onto a blank leaf bearing a watermark of 1826.

There were American versions of “Humphrey Bluster” letters; in 1818 two such items respecting the Boston election were printed. At this writing RLIN, OCLC, and NUC Pre-1956list no holdings of the present, Anglo Bluster.

•  Not in NSTC. On Graham, see: The Dictionary of National Biography, XXII, 328–32. Creased, with corners bent, otherwise good. A few early, lightly inked marginalia.

The five articles go so far as to proclaim that sharing of bad news is treason and punishable as such.

•  One fold.

Rare. Not located via OCLC.

•  Not in Shoemaker.   As issued, with some later folds; edges a little irregular. Lightly foxed.  (24634)