Abingdon, Md.: Printed by Daniel P. Ruff, 1806. First edition. Stoddard and Whitesell 802; American Bibliography 9820. ¶ A substantial and accomplished collection of poems by a young lady from Fair Park, Maryland, on numerous themes: elegies to lost loved ones and friends, epistles to the poet William Hayley, to...
Various publishers, 1825-1850. Contemporary notations on the front blanks, listing the plays present; notations in pencil and ink on several of the individual plays, with information about the cast of characters, where the play was performed, etc. The majority are American reprints of English plays, but they are contemporary plays...
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Litchfield, (CT): Printed by Collier and Buel, [1793]. First edition, state A. Stoddard & Whitesell 448; Wegelin 489; Evans 25104; BAL 4976 (Dunlap) & 5046 (Dwight). The first anthology of American poetry; a second volume was planned, but never published. Smith (1771-1798), a physician and author who died at 28...
New York: Printed by Mott & Lyon for Fellows & Adam, Thomas Greenleaf, and Naphtali Judah, 1796. First collected edition. BAL 894; Evans 30025. The four treatises on the French Revolution by poet, businessman, and diplomat Joel Barlow (1754-1812), published together for the first time. Barlow lived in France during...
Paris: Printed at the English Press and Sold by Barrois and R. Thomson, 1793. BAL 877. An important edition of Barlow’s famous poem, with a prefatory note by him discussing the earlier editions, an appendix to the introduction, revisions to the text, and the joint appearance of this poem with...
New York: Published by David Longworth, 1807. First edition. Hill 15; American Bibliography 12095. A musical comedy written by the printer and publisher Lazarus Beach, and though never produced on the stage a second edition was published in 1827. The setting is New York City and one of the songs...
Alexandria: Printed by Cottom and Stewart, Booksellers, 1802. First American edition. American Bibliography 1860; cf. Garside & Schöwerling 1801:15 for the English edition. The first American edition of the only novel by Thomas Bellamy, the picaresque tale of a young boy, Alfred, who is abandoned by his mother and lives...
Richmond: From the Franklin Press, W. W. Gray, Printer, 1819. First edition. Stoddard & Whitesell 1220; Wegelin 882; American Bibliography 47420; Sabin 7387. A patriotic poem about the responsibilities of citizens as they enjoy the benefits of American liberty, which is dedicated to the social and political welfare of the people of the United States.
Boston: Bowles and Dearborn, 1827. First edition. BAL 4422; American Imprints 28656. Dana’s first book, preceded by several pamphlets. It includes one of his most celebrated poems, The Buccanner, a long verse narrative of the supernatural. Presentation inscription on the front blank for a school prize dated December 31, 1827.
Boston: Printed and Sold by William M'Alpine in Marlborough Street, 1771. About the tenth American edition and the second by the Boston publisher William M'Alpine, who first published this in 1770; this is possibly a reprint of that; they both contain 154 pages, as does another Boston edition of 1770...
New York: Published by the Longworths, 1812. First American edition. NCBEL III, 1130; American Bibliography 25271. Slightly later note on the advertisement page by a previous owner and actor.
London: Printed for J. Mathews, 1791. First English edition. Noted under BAL 5041 and Wegelin 129. A long poem dedicated to Voltaire and written as a Calvinist orthodox response to what Dwight states in his dedication is the negative influence on religion of Voltaire, Hume and Priestley: “Reasoning is an...
Boston: In N.E. Re-printed by S. Kneeland for Benj. Eliot, at his Shop in King Street, 1720. First American edition. Evans 2121; ESTC W3563, which records nine locations in the U.S. (AAS, Boston Athenaeum, BPL, Houghton, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, LCP, MHS, LC and Yale). A collection of nine sermons...
Boston: Hilliard, Gray, 1838. First edition. Wright I, 1107. ¶ A historical drama based on Jameson's Lives of the Female Sovereigns, and one of two historical novels by Louisa Jane Hall (1802-1892), Massahcusetts poet.
Wrentham (Mass.): Printed and sold by the Author, 1801. First edition. American Bibliography 641. An anthology of English and American verse and prose, which includes Phillip Freneau's "The Indian Student; or the Force of Nature" and John Maxcy's "Charge Delivered by the President to the Graduates of Rhode-Island College." From...
New York: Published by James Eastburn, Literary Rooms, 1821. First edition. BAL 8512. ¶ A vision poem about the final day of retribution, read by James Hillhouse (1789-1841) at the anniversary of the Phi Beta Kappa Society in 1812. This was an early work by the New York poet, predating...
Philadelphia: Printed for Mathew Carey, 1794. First edition. Evans 27145; Sabin 33813; Stoddard & Whitesell 476. One of several poems by Humphreys (1752-1818), a founding member of the Hartford Wits, promoting America and advocating to its citizens a positive message for advancement of the new nation. Humphreys was a colonel...
New York: William H. Clayton, 1824. First edition. BAL 10112; Wright I, 1429; Langfeld & Kleinfield, pages 26-27. ¶ A collection of eight of Irving's earliest sketches, mainly theatre reviews, all written under the pseudonym Jonathan Oldstyle. They first appeared in 1802 in the Morning Chronicle, a newspaper edited and...
Exeter, [N.H.]: Printed and Sold by Stearns & Winslow, 1794. A later American edition, but the first printed in Exeter, New Hampshire. Evans 27182; NCBEL II, 847 (but not noting American editions). An immensley popular courtesty book for women, both in England where it was first published in 1753 and...
(New York:) Published by Elam Bliss, 1829. First edition. American Imprints 39223; Sabin 38075. A landmark work on the history of American literature by Samuel Lorenzo Knapp (1783-1838), author, local Massachusetts politician and lawyer. In 15 "lectures" Knapp writes about the origins of an American literature and the influences on...
Newburyport: From the Press of Ephraim W. Allen, (1810). First edition. American Bibliography 20505. A spirited 4th of July oration by one of the more interesting and colorful literary figures of his time, Samuel Lorenzo Knapp (1783-1838), who praises Washington and Hamilton, but not Jefferson. See the DAB.
New York: E. Bliss, 1830. First edition. Sabin 38084; American Imprints 2139. ¶ An assortment of entertaining epistolary essays on American characters, political and literary, with observations about the city of Washington, the Capitol building, Library of Congress, the literature of Washington, New York poets, American painters, etc., by Samuel...
New York: Adlard & Saunders, 1838. First edition. BAL 14355; American Imprints 51776. ¶ The first book by George Pope Morris (1802-1864), the influential Knickerbocker literary figure, which includes his famous poem “The Oak,” the first line of which is “Woodman, spare that tree!” See Merle Johnson, You Know These.....
Richmond: Printed by Samuel Pleasants, 1798. First edition. Stoddard & Whitesell 610; Hill, American Plays, 194; Evans 34159; Sabin 51316. The first book by William Munford (1775-1825), a collection of verse, prose and one play. Munford was a native of Virginia and the son of Revolutionary War soldier and dramatist...
Boston: Printed by Young and Etheridge, 1792. First edition. Stoddard & Whitesell 444; Evans 24643. An elaborate and lofty philosophical poem on the cultural advancement of man, modeled on the works of Alexander Pope and Mark Akenside. Handsomely printed with liberal use of ornaments - or "pretentious use" according to...