No place, no publisher, 1853. First edition. The only published volume of poetry by Andrews Norton (1786-1853), man of letters and conservative theologian from Cambridge, Mass., a slender volume of 16 poems. It was privately printed posthumously by Norton's family, and this copy bears a family inscription. Presentation on the...
Richmond: News-Leader, (1912). First and only separate edition. Not found in BAL; OCLC records one copy (Library of Virginia). A letter written by the venerable Virginia author, Thomas Nelson Page (1853-1922), to his local newspaper about the state of politics in Virginia. The newspaper agreed with Page's sentiments and promoted...
London: John Miller, 1823. First edition. BAL 15781. ¶ A short opera written for the actor Charles Kemble and best remembered for its theme song “Home Sweet Home” which is sung by Clari early in the first act. This is the first appearance of Payne’s famous song, for which he.....
New York: Baker & Scribner, 1848. First edition. Sabin 65546. ¶ Prime’s first book, a collection of sketches and tales of genteel outdoor life, written in the manner of Washington Irving. Prime was a young New York City lawyer at the time of this book, and later went on to...
San Francisco: The Arion Press, 1995. First Arion Press edition, number 136 of 300 copies, signed by Roth. ¶ From the library of David and Valerie Belch.
New York: Harper & Brothers, 1871. First edition. BAL 17428; Sabin 78782. ¶ The memoirs and letters of the Massachusetts novelist Catharine Maria Sedgwick (1789-1867), whose recollections, like her fiction, present a vivid picture of contemporary New England and its history.
Philadelphia: Published by Edward Earle; Baltimore: Edward J. Coale, 1810. First edition. Stoddard & Whitesell 924; American Imprints 21334; BAL volume 5, page 251 (Key). A substantial and varied collection of poetry and translations by John Shaw, a physician who traveled extensively before accepting a teaching position at the University...
Hartford: Seldon & Goodwin, Printers, 1815. First edition. BAL 17615; American Bibliography 35937; Stoddard & Whitesell 1111. The uncommon first book by Lydia Huntley Sigourney (1791-1865), a substantial collection of poems and short essays which foreshadowed her career as one of the most popular and prolific American literary women of...
[Oakland or Berkeley, Ca.]: Published for Private Circulation, [1887]. First edition. BAL 18015. ¶ A memorial to Edward Rowland Sill (1841-1887), a popular and respected teacher and poet at the University of California at Berkeley, where he moved from his native New England. Contributors include Charles Warren Stoddard, Elizabeth Stuart...
New York: Redfield, 1853. First revised edition, and the first ediiton with illustrations by Darley. BAL 18140; Hamilton, Early American Book Illustrators, I, 608. ¶ The Yemassee, first published in 1835, was the most popular of William Gilmore Simms’s border romances, an elaborate series of stories, in the manner of...
Boston: The Four Seas Company, 1922. First edition, second binding. Wilson A5b. ¶ From the inventory of Burton Weiss, Bookseller.
San Francisco: A. M. Robertson, 1915. First edition, one of 525 copies. BAL 18762; Mattila A8. ¶ Sterling's famous ode that celebrated the opening of the exposition that celebrated the opening of the Panama Canal. Handsomely printed and bound in the manner of the Kelmscott Press by Taylor & Taylor...
Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1884. First edition. BAL 19780. A substantial biographical treatment of one of the great American travelers, travel writers and poets, Bayard Taylor (1825-1878).
Boston: Light & Stearns, 1837. First edition. BAL 498 (Allston) & 3135 (Child), etc; Thompson, American Literary Annuals, page 112; Faxon, Literary Annuals, 79. Though not as long-lived as a few of the other literary annuals (there were only four issues, 1836, ’37, ’41 & ’50), The Boston Book was...
Philadelphia: Lea and Blanchard, 1840. First edition. BAL 19942; Wright I, 2562. A scarce novel by the nephew of Isaiah Thomas who was born in Providence, R.I., but was raised in Charleston, S.C. and spent much of his early career as a journalist, poet and novelist, in Cincinnati. Thomas (1806-1866)...
![Letters to Various Persons. [Edited by Ralph Waldo Emerson.]. HENRY DAVID THOREAU](/pictures/thumb/20720.jpg?v=1529518422)
Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1865. First edition. Borst A6.1.a; BAL 20116, binding A. ¶ Heretofore unpublished letters and poems by Thoreau.
Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1879. First edition. BAL 7873 (Hayne). ¶ The first collected edition of the poems of Frank O. Ticknor (1822-1874), a widely read Georgia poet and friend and contemporary of fellow Southern poet Paul Hayne, who praises Ticknor's poetry in the introduction. The editor was Kate Mason...
Hartford: Printed by Peter E. Gleason, 1816. Second American edition; the first was published in Walpole, New Hampshire in 1797. BAL 20738; Wright I, 2629; American Bibliography 39136. ¶ An interesting novel by playwright, poet and jurist Royall Tyler (1757-1826), the story of American physician Updike Underhill who signs on...
Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1888. First edition. The scarce collected poems by the Concord minister and author David Atwood Wasson (1823-1887), one of the most highly regarded of the Transcendentalist writers, whose poems had previously only appeared in periodicals. This posthumous collection - Wasson's first and only book - was...
New York: Carleton, 1866. First edition. Wright II, 2667. ¶ The first book by Charles Henry Webb (1834-1905), the much traveled writer and publisher who is best known as the editor and publisher of Clemens’ The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County. Webb was a skilled humorist in his own...
(London, Ontario: Printed for the Editor by A. Talbot) For Private Distribution Only, 1899. First edition, number 69 of 225 numbered copies, signed by Traubel. Myerson A17, binding B (there were only three copies in binding A); BAL 21451. A scarce and important collection of literary fragments left by Walt...
Boston: Light and Stearns, 1836. First edition. BAL 21697; American Imprints 42466. An early narrative poem by John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1891), based on the story of the legendary 17th century Indian warrior Mogg Hegon. Mogg Megone was first published in the spring of 1835 in two issues of The New...
Garden City: Doubleday, 1946. First edition. ¶ Edmund Wilson's second work of fiction published in book form, a series of stories about the imaginary Hecate County in Upstate, New York, that begins with the memorable story of Asa M. Stryker, the narrator's neighbor who shot snapping turtles.
New York: Harper & Brothers, 1896. First edition. Wright III, 6038. ¶ Eight stories about soldiers and Indians west of the Missouri, and appropriately inscribed on the front free endpaper to “Captain A. C. Macklen with / the Author’s kind regards. / Nov. 1895.”.
