BAUMAN RARE BOOKS 14 “True! Nervous, Very, Very Dreadfully Nervous I Had Been And Am” 13POE, Edgar Allan. The Works. Edinburgh, 1874-75. Four volumes. Octavo, early 20thcentury three-quarter navy morocco gilt. $3200 First edition of Poe’s complete works edited by Poe scholar John Ingram, with engraved frontispiece portrait in Volume I, handsomely bound by Zaehnsdorf. After his death, Poe’s reputation suffered under the willful misrepresentation of his literary executor, critic Rufus Griswold. In an attempt to set the record straight, Englishman “John Henry Ingram published the first significant life of Poe in 1874, which he expanded into two volumes in 1880… Ingram devoted years of his life to corresponding with everyone he could find who had known Poe or who had reliable information about him. Ingram also edited a fourvolume edition of Poe’s works and wrote nearly 50 articles about him… Ingram’s biography… effected a turning point in Poe’s reputation” (Meyers, 264). Volume I with small owner marks to contents list. Very slight rubbing to some joints and edges, Volume I with joints expertly repaired. A fine set, handsomely bound. First Edition Of Thoreau’s First Book, A Week On The Concord And Merrimack Rivers, The Arthur Swann Copy 14THOREAU, Henry David. A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. Boston and Cambridge, 1849. Octavo, original brown cloth gilt, custom chemise, slipcase. $25,000 First edition, first issue, of Thoreau’s first book, one of only 1000 copies printed and one of less than 400 copies in the publisher’s cloth. In residence at Walden Pond, “Thoreau’s first concentrated effort (was) to assemble, flesh out, and then rearrange material about the trip he and (his brother) John had taken on the Concord and Merrimack rivers… It is the first of the many American books shaped along a river trip, the first in which the river becomes a stream, not just of water or even of time, but of consciousness itself” (Richardson, 155). Despite good reviews, the first edition (consisting of 1000 copies) did not sell. In 1862, 595 copies of the first edition were bought from Thoreau by Ticknor and Fields and rebound with a new title page bearing their imprint. BAL 20104. With the bookplate of Arthur Swann. Swann’s collection was known for the excellence of its copies. A few contemporary ink marks to text block fore-edge, lower front joint with an expert cloth repair. A beautiful copy.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NDg3OTM=