Binding:  Publisher's tan cloth, front cover stamped in black and orange, with affixed chromolithographic illustration of the sorcerer opening the hidden door for Aladdin, spine with black-stamped title.

•  Binding as above, shaken, with light dust-soiling and light rubbing to extremities, edges, and cover chromolithograph; spine with small bits of cloth lost at had and foot. Front free endpaper lacking, frontispiece recto with (childish?) ownership inscriptions and geometric doodles, title-page with same name and pencilled inscription reading “The meaning of Aladdin is the Glory of Religion.” Sewing loosening, with frontispiece and first few leaves separating along inner margin from foot. Scattered light smudges and spots. Clearly a touch over-loved by at least one youthful reader, but still delightful.  (29134)

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 5809. Recently rebound in period-style tan cloth over light blue paper sides, spines with paper labels. Contemporary ownership inscription to front fly-leaf in each volume. Map with light offsetting and short tear just starting along one fold. First 20 leaves of vol. II waterstained and last 10 foxed; scattered incidences of spotting in all volumes, pages generally clean. A nice-looking set, and still — as it always was! — a work offering a pleasant way to absorb ancient history.

We locate fewer than ten copies, one of which is now missing. The work was written to be a potboiler and was read to death in the German as well as the English editions.

•  Evans 30324; Sabin 19130 & 98450; Seidensticker, First Century of German Printing in America, 145; Arndt & Eck, German Language Printing in the U.S., 1045. Not in Wright, American Fiction.   Modern wrappers. Title-page and p. 82 with bug-spotting; text age-toned and with staining; fore- and upper margins of pp. 77–80 with short tears and some crumpling. Minor worming in some lower margins, not taking text. Pp. 81/82, and final leaf offering advertising, in excellent facsimile. Housed in a gray cloth clamshell case with red leather spine label.  (26968)

Click the images for enlargements.

Defoe's novel not quite filling out the 32 pp. of such a little book as this was to be, a tale of “Virtue Rewarded” (not Pamela's!) was appended; and the title-page verso offers a primer-style presentation of letters, “points,” and figures.

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 31310; Welch 275.79. This ed. not in Rosenbach, Children.   Lacking wrappers and final leaf, with the latter interrupting “Virtue Rewarded” but not the main story. Pages age-toned and spotted, with corners bumped and dog-earred; engravings variously impressed, with some sharp and clear, others less so.  (27837)

American children

Page [48] bears an advertisement reading: “Book-store. Printing-office. Library. W. & J. Gilman, printers, booksellers, and librarians . . . publish and sell a variety of useful and entertaining books for children and youth.”

WorldCat and Shoemaker combine to locate eight copies.

•  Shoemaker 12353; Brigham, Robinson Crusoe, 103.   Publisher's wrappers; front one dust-soiled, with old writing, detached and reattached using cello-tape; rear wrapper lacking. Staining, generally light, and dog-earing; faded and watery old blue inkstain in upper margins of pp. 23 to end. A well-used but still interesting copy of a Crusoe for children!  (28123)

•  Publisher's red cloth, covers blind-stamped, spine with gilt-stamped decorative title; cloth gently faded, extremities and spine gilt slightly rubbed. Eight plates lacking (of 16). Frontispiece recto with private collector's rubber-stamp, back free endpaper with same owner's small bookplate pasted in upside-down. Pages lightly age-toned with light offsetting opposite some plates, first few leaves with faint waterstaining in upper portions. A few corners dog-eared. Although not all called-for plates are present, there are no obvious excisions or absences.  (30003)

Although Sternick says the first edition appeared in 1864, this appears to be erroneous — the copyright page here gives 1866, and WorldCat fails to locate any copies anywhere printed prior to 1866.

•  Sabin 64917; cf. Sternick 589.   Publisher's textured oxblood cloth, covers framed in blind, spine with decorative gilt-stamped title; extremities a bit rubbed. A clean, attractive copy of this romanticized Western American story.  (30359)

In this edition, the title-page is in the state with the diagonal (not vertical) shading of the pedestal; and quires and D are without catchwords on the rectos (i.e., they were printed at Hanau), while all other quires have catchwords (i.e., they were printed in London). The title-page's claim to Frankfurt printing is simply specious.

•  STC (rev.) 12685.3; Shaaber, British Authors Printed Abroad, H49; Sabin 29819; Alden & Landis, European Americana, 606/61. For a detailed bibliographical study of the editions of this and their points, see: Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, 74 (1980), pp. 1-12. On Hall, see: The Dictionary of National Biography, XXIV, 75-80. Old vellum, neatly recased and hinges strengthened. Lacks the maps, but the engraved title-page and engraved plate of "writing" are present. These have light, thumbnail-sized waterstains at their foremargins, being the only leaves so marked, all others being quite clean. Priced approximately $2300 less than the last complete copy to sell at auction.

six color-printed plates done by Troy and Margaret West Kinney

The 1928 full-color, silent film “The Viking” (MGM, script by Robert Tonsing) was based on Ms. Liljencrantz's novel!

Signed binding: Publisher's khaki cloth, front cover pictorially stamped in black, cream, and gilt; back cover stamped with a device in black; spine stamped in black and gilt. Front cover signed “K”: Troy and Margaret West Kinney.

•  Binding as above, light wear to extremities. Frontispiece recto with inked ownership inscription. A few scattered faint smudges; almost entirely clean. A nice copy of an attractive production.  (28609)

The presentation of slavery is also perhaps of particular interest here, the protagonist visiting slave markets and in fact buying and owning “negros” and “negresses” while at the same time apparently proceeding with every sincere intention of acting humanely within the inhuman system (neither justifying slavery and nor intending to, he yet strives to keep families together, he buys two boys with the intention of manumitting them after seven years, and interactions between him and his wife and people of color are notably respectful ”both ways”).

Provenance:  Embossed library stamp of Pennsylvania's Deutsche Gesellschaft Bibliothek on the title-pages.

A classic imaginary voyage and shipwreck.

•  Sabin 64323; American Imprints 8810. On Jane Porter, see: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online.   Period-style quarter sand colored cloth over blue-green paper boards, printed paper labels to spine. Tears on many leaves, and repairs on some, torn mostly in the lower gutter and outer margins; two or three corners in each volume torn away; old soiling and stains of various sorts. Pressure-stamp as above; pencil notations in a child's (?) hand in the margins of a few pages.  (30134)

This edifying story isillustrated with a maritime vignette on the front cover, a frontispiece, and five rather large in-text engravings, one of which has some early hand coloring (the “nimble” colt pictured is now chestnut).

•  American Imprints 11639. Not in Rosenbach, Children's.   Publisher's printed paper–covered sides with sheep shelfback, spine with gilt-stamped title; binding darkened and rubbed overall, especially at extremities, spine with gilt mostly lost and head chipped. Front free endpaper with early pencilled ownership inscription. Scattered spots of minor foxing and staining. Clearly read and loved, but not abused.  (29987)

Binding:  Publisher's brown cloth, front cover with gilt-stamped title and scenic vignette stamped in gilt and blue, spine likewise.

•  Binding as above, light wear to joints and extremities, front cover cloth noticeably bubbled but not torn, spine with inked shelving number. Front pastedown with institutional bookplate. A few signatures unopened; pages and plates very clean.  (29140)

    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)