Literature Holiday 2022 - 18 - Inscribed By Emerson In The Year Of Publication To His Close Friend And Longtime Adviser, Abel Adams 14. EMERSON, Ralph Waldo. Essays: Second Series. Boston, 1844. Octavo, contemporary three-quarter brown morocco, custom clamshell box. $17,500. First edition, presentation copy, of the second series of Emerson’s essays including such important works as “Experience,” “The Poet,” and “Nature,” usual mixed first and second printing but composed almost entirely of first printing sheets, inscribed in the year of publication to his close friend and trusted adviser: “Abel Adams from his friend, R.W.E. 15 October, 1844.” “Timeless, and without a trace of ‘dating,’ these essays are as readable, and to a considerable extent as much read, today as a hundred years ago. Their ethical inspiration and stimulation, their occasional startling phrase, their individualistic idealism… speaks with the same simple power and force in the midst of modern complexities” (Grolier, 100 American 47). “Copies composed exclusively of first or second printing sheets are scarce” (Myerson A16.1.b). This copy, however, has an unusually large number of first printing sheets (19 verified first printing points), with the only divergent second printing points found at 60.23 (“I turn”); 309.5 (“‘There’s a”); and 313.4 (“and”). This copy also bears the following reading at 200.4-5: “continua-’[blank]”, noted by Myerson in some copies, but not linked to either printing. Myerson A16.1.a-b. BAL 5198. This copy is inscribed by Emerson to Abel Adams, one of Emerson’s closest friends. “At the time of his first marriage and during the few years of his ministry in Boston, Mr. Emerson and his young wife found a home in Chardon Street with his parishioner, Mr. Abel Adams, a merchant of integrity and success. All through his life Mr. Adams was a valued and helpful friend and adviser” (Rusk, The Letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 93, note 1). Later, when Adams steered Emerson towards a bad investment in railroad stock, he assumed the college expenses of Emerson’s son. He also included the Emerson family in his will. After Adams’ death, Emerson wrote that Adams was: “[o]ne of the best of my friends, whose hospitable house was always open to me by day or night for so many years… We cannot love him better than we did.” Occasional foxing, inner paper hinges split, wear to binding. A very good copy.
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