WASHINGTON, LINCOLN, JEFFERSON, FRANKLIN, HAMILTON, ADAMS: THE LIVES OF GREAT AMERICAN STATESMEN, IN 32 VOLUMES

MORSE, John T., editor. American Statesmen. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1899-1900. Thirty-two volumes. Small octavo, contemporary three-quarter pebbled red morocco gilt, marbled boards and endpapers, top edges gilt, uncut and partly unopened. $4800.

Standard Library edition of this collection of biographies of the founding fathers of the United States, with frontispiece portraits and title page vignettes.

The twenty-eight biographies include those of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Alexander Hamilton, Henry Clay, James Monroe, Samuel Adams, Daniel Webster, James Madison, John Adams, John Marshall and John Jay. Among the authors are Henry Cabot Lodge, Charles Francis Adams, Jr., and Theodore Roosevelt. Each biography is indexed, and there is also a general index volume for the set. Morse explained the idea behind this celebrated set: "The principle has been to make such a list of men in public life that the aggregation of all their biographies would give, in this personal shape, the history and the picture of the growth and development of the United States from the beginning of that agitation which led to the Revolution until the completion of that solidarity which we believe has resulted from the civil war and the subsequent reconstruction." Morse's biography of Lincoln with frontispiece portrait and folding map.

Interiors fine, only very minor wear to contemporary bindings. A beautiful set.