"WE ARE INDISPUTABLY THE HEIRS TO HAMILTON'S AMERICA": FIRST EDITION OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON'S COLLECTED WORKS, 1810, FEATURING THE IMPORTANT THIRD EDITION OF THE FEDERALIST

HAMILTON, Alexander. The Works of Alexander Hamilton: Comprising His Most Important Official Reports; An Improved Edition of the Federalist, on the New Constitution, Written in 1788; and Pacificus, on the Proclamation of Neutrality, Written in 1793. New York: Williams and Whiting, 1810. Three volumes. Octavo, modern full tan calf, green morocco spine labels, raised bands. $15,000.

First edition of Hamilton's collected Works, containing the third edition of the Federalist Papers, "the most influential American political work" (Streeter II:1049).

Only six years after Hamilton was killed in a duel, this first edition of his three-volume Works was issued, a collection that confirms Theodore Roosevelt's view of Hamilton as "the most brilliant American statesman who ever lived" (Knott, 259). As co-author of The Federalist, America's "first treasury secretary and principal architect of the new government… Hamilton was the messenger from a future that we now inhabit… We are indisputably the heirs to Hamilton's America" (Chernow, 4-6). Featured herein is the third edition of The Federalist—"the most important work in political science that has ever been written, or is likely ever to be written, in the United States. It is, indeed, the one product of the American mind that is rightly counted among the classics of political theory… the first and still most authoritative commentary on the Constitution of the United States" (Rossiter). Also within are key writings that shaped American fiscal and federal policies: Report on Public Credit, Report on a National Bank, On the Constitutionality of a National Bank, Report on the Subject of Manufactures, Report on the Establishment of a Mint and materials not found in a later 1850 edition of Hamilton's works. This third edition of The Federalist contains additional pages reading "The Federalist… a New Edition… in Two Volumes," presumably so that these two volumes could be sold separately as The Federalist. This printing of The Federalist, "in fact, Vols. II and III of Hamilton's works," was preceded only by the rare 1787 first edition, 1799 reissue and 1802 second edition (Sabin 23982). Edited by John Wells. With frontispiece portraits of Hamilton, Jay and Madison. Bibliotheca Hamiltoniana 22. Shaw & Shoemaker 20274. Sabin 23982. See Sabin 29987.

Interior generally fresh. A handsome copy.