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Provenance: Signature on title-page of Bruce J. Worthington, dated 1794; of Ethan Allen, dated 1856; of John H. Alexander, Esq.; in the library of the Maryland Diocesan Librarywherein Wroth will have worked with and delighted in it (deaccessioned).

•  Evans 10049; Wroth, Maryland, 254; Sabin 45186.   Recent full calf, old style, by Grace Bindings (signed “G.B.” on lower turn-in of inside back cover), with gilt tooling on covers and spine, raised bands on spine, red title-label. Title-page browned around the edges and with some loss of paper; leaf now backed as is the last (bookseller's advertisements). Maryland Diocesan library stamp (deaccessioned as above) on title-page. Dedication page with very old repair along inner area of blank verso. Old damp- and/or waterstaining to early and late leaves and a few other places; occasional stray spots or small stains. Complete with the errata/advertisement leaf. A handsome, impressive volume.  (20605)

Writer Carrera:  From one of the leading families of Chile, José Miguel Carrera led the successful coup de etat of 15 November 1811 that overthrew the Junta de Gobierno that was established in the political void after the capture of the king of Spain. As sole leader of the nation he created the first Chilean constitution, designed the first Chilean flag and coat of arms, and was responsible for bringing the first printing press to Chile. Disagreement with the Lautaro Lodge of the Masons led to his overthrow by Bernardo O’Higgins and the rift never healed, eventually leading to Carrera’s exile in Argentina, the U.S., and later Uruguay. His brothers fell into the hands of O’Higgins who had them executed.

Recipient Didier:  Henry Didier was the godfather of Edgar Allan Poe’s older brother, William Henry; he was to take the boy into his home for some years, though accounts differ as to whether this happened immediately after the death of the Poe children's parents (1811) or after the death of their guardian grandfather (1816). He ran a counting house in Baltimore and William Henry worked there as a young man. Though the Poe brothers' intimacy varied due to circumstances over the years, clearly Edgar knew Didier; he would surely have visited his brother at the Didier house.

On Uruguay:  “Las cosas continuan en el mismo estado. Los Portugueses no han recivido refuerzo despues de los 500 Pernambucanos. Artigas se mantiene firme, esta guarnicion no se mueve. El Rey ha escrito para que el Gobierno de Buenos Ayres se desida.”

On Argentina: “Buenos Ayres continua tranquilo, está entretenido en la eleccion del nuevo cavildo que se verificará a fines del presente.”

On Peru:  “En el Perú no hay novedad considerable. [L]os españoles tienenel aquella costa 11 buques de guerra, inclusas dos de 44, pero esto no estorbó al Berg.n chileno el Aguila. . . . No pasa de 9000 veteranos el Ex[erci]to en aquel pais, aseguran que llegando los buques de guerra de Estados Unidos piensan atacar a Arequipa y seguir a Lima; no lo creo por ahora.”

On O’Higgins: “O’Higgins sigue mandando el Ex[erci]to y Brayer es sus m[ay]or gene]ral. — Pueyrredon ha mandado a esta un comisionado para que alcance de Leon que se me eche de aqui; Leon constante en su amistad y systema se negó despresiando al comisionado.”

On Prisoners: “Mi viejo Padre, 85 años de edad, ha estado incomunicado 17 dias, y ultimamente sigue su arresto en casa. . . . Mis hermanos presos aun, y lo mismo muchos de nuestros compatriotas. . . . Mr. Handle continua en su prision con todos sus oficiales y tripulacion.”

•  Very good condition. Written in a very clear hand.  (24646)

Maryland

Vol. I opens with a steel-engraved portrait of the author, done by Henry Cook after Hervé; vol. III is illustrated with an oversized, folding plate of a water-engine intended for millwork, devised by the author, and a plate of another of his inventions: the automated “chamber fire escape”, which enables anyone to lower him- or herself from a high window. This is the third edition, following the first of 1807.

•  NSTC H625; Sabin 30461.   Contemporary speckled sheep, spines with gilt-stamped leather title-labels; vol. I with joints and extremities refurbished, vols. II and III with spines and edges rubbed, old strips of library tape reinforcing spine heads. Ex–social club library: 19th-century bookplates, call number on endpapers, pressure-stamp on title-pages, vols. II and III with paper shelving labels at top of spines (vol. I showing signs of now-absent label). Vol. I title-page with offsetting from frontispiece; vol. III with pp. 69–72 excised (two leaves of a rather long religious-themed letter from Harriott to his son) and with upper portion of one leaf crumpled, reinforced some time ago. Some light age-toning, intermittent small spots of foxing and ink-staining, pages generally clean. Utterly absorbing.  (30651)

•  Laced together with a silk ribbon. Some small spots of browning on drawing and elsewhere adjacent to ribbon; a little soiling exterior and along edges; and a few tiny tears in edges.

For more INVENTIONS,
including other, similar
              HENDERSON patents, 
          click here.

    Some of both the voyages and the maps make their first published appearances here—among them the New England map depicting the Maryland and Virginia coastlines, engraved by R. Michault after one contained in Richard Blome’s Description of the Island of Jamaica, part of which work appears here translated into French. Altogether, a volume notable both for its strong African and North American content and for the aesthetic appeal of its plates and pleasingly ornamented typography.

Sabin 36944; Alden & Landis 674/159; Beinecke Lesser Antilles Collection 68; Baer, 17th-Century Maryland, 78. Recent 17th-century style mottled calf with covers framed in a gilt roll and double-panelled in gilt fillets with gilt-stamped corner fleurons,; spine with gilt-stamped leather title and author labels and gilt-stamped decorative devices. Several pages (not including title) and the versos of a few plates stamped by a now-defunct institution. Paper slightly embrittled. Light waterstaining to a number of leaves and plates, mostly in margins; the first map with two repairs. One leaf (blank?) prior to Colonies Angloises excised; lacking the folding map of the Nile. A good copy, in a handsome binding of recent vintage and contemporaneous style. (8746)

Vol. I opens with a rather nice mezzotint portrait of Wirt, engraved by A.B. Walter after Charles B. King; vol. II with an oversized, folding facsimile of a letter from John Adams.

•  BAL 11056; Cohen 2161; Howes K87; Sabin 37415.   Publisher's brown cloth, covers framed in blind-stamped strapwork, spines with gilt-stamped title and blind-stamped decorations; cloth lightly dust-soiled, chipped at corners and spine extremities. Ex–social club library: 19th-century bookplates, call number on endpapers, rubber-stamp on title-pages. Vol. II: one leaf of contents with two short tears. Pages clean.  (29413)

Provenance:  Front pastedown with early inked ownership inscription of James Beatty; two additional similar inscriptions dated 1825 and 1826. First preface page with genealogical annotations regarding the Beatty family, including remarks on the Staten Island Moravian Church's acquisition of John Beatty's land, and a note that the James Beatty who owned this volume was the son of that donor; all three generations of Beattys were strong supporters of the Moravian Church.

•  Howes L474; Field 952; Sabin 42110; ESTC T88588.   Contemporary mottled sheep, shellacked, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label and gilt-stamped compartment decorations; front cover with small abrasions, joints and extremities rubbed, spine with leather cracked (at one point deeply) and and chipped at head, joints starting from head and foot but binding still holding nicely. Map lacking. inner page portions with irregular semicircular of browning, sometimes deep into pages, sometimes quite shallow; old waterstaining across lower outer corners at beginning and end of volume only. Occasional other stains; occasional pencilled underlining.  (29265)

•  BAL 14856; Shaw & Shoemaker 48824; Wegelin 1066. On Neal, see: Dictionary of American Biography, XIII, 398–99. Period-style quarter tan cloth over light blue paper–covered boards, spine with printed paper label. Dedication page and a few others (not including title) stamped by a now-defunct institution. Waterstaining to upper margins and some inner page parts, with final leaves darkened and a few spotted with foxing. Some upper edges chipped; final leaf with inner margin repaired.

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A pencilled annotation in one margin of this copy reads “The author is not aware that the people in the Southern States are not called Yankees”; one particularly anti-American remark later in the volume has been lined through in pencil.

•  Sabin 27570; Howes S1115.   Publisher's speckled sheep, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label; covers sunned unevenly, edge/extremities rubbed, head of spine showing traces of now-absent label. Ex–social club library: 19th-century bookplate on front pastedown, front free endpaper lacking, pressure-stamp on title-page. Title-page with supposed author's name inked in upper margin. Waterstaining to lower outer corners of first few leaves; scattered spots of foxing and staining; one signature much browned, showing the different effects of time and “life” on different papers.  (26376)