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Found 96 books(s). Showing results 1 thru 10.
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“A BOOK OF THE GREATEST RARITY”

(CONTINENTAL CONGRESS). Journal of the Proceedings of the Congress. Philadelphia, 1774. First edition, first issue, of the first official journal of the Continental Congress, one of the earliest publications of the American government, “a book of the greatest rarity.” Also presenting for the first time an attempt to design a seal to “represent emblematically a united nation” in America. An excellent copy in contemporary calf with half title. $65,000.

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“THE FIRST AMERICAN ARMY AND AN ARMY OF EVERYONE”

COOPER, John. Revolutionary War Diary. New York, 1776. Rare 1776 Revolutionary War Diary of John Cooper, a 24-year-old enlisted man in New York’s First Regiment, Naval Service, containing over 30 handwritten pages interspersed throughout a first edition of Gaine’s Universal Register (1776), an almanac whose blank leafs were used by Cooper in this remarkable account of the year America declared its independence, with frank details of an enlisted man’s life and vivid accounts of skirmishes with Indians and British troops as Cooper’s regiment fought throughout the spring and summer of 1776 to maintain crucial American command of Lake Champlain and the upper Hudson River Valley. In contemporary calf. $38,000.

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"IT WAS NOT EXPECTED… THAT SUCH AN OUTRAGE AND MASSACRE…WOULD HAVE BEEN PERPETRATED: RARE AND IMPORTANT CONTEMPORARY ACCOUNT OF THE 1770 BOSTON MASSACRE, THE EARLIEST BOSTON PRINTING TO BE SOLD IN AMERICA

(AMERICAN REVOLUTION) (BOWDOIN, James). A Short Narrative of the Horrid Massacre in Boston. Boston, Printed, by Order of the Town, by Messirs. Edes and Gill; And Re-printed for W. Bingley… London, 1770. [Actually printed in Boston by Edes and Gill in July, 1770].

Extremely rare and important July 1770 Boston printing of this contemporary and influential account of the Boston Massacre, originally commissioned and ordered to be printed by the Town of Boston. Though the title page bears a London imprint, this edition was actually printed and sold in Boston to circumvent the American distribution ban (put in place so as not to prejudice the jury hearing the trial of the soldiers), and as such was the earliest Boston printing to be sold in America. $35,000.

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"PENNSYLVANIA WAS A PORTENT OF THE AMERICA TO BE"

(FRANKLIN, Benjamin). Charters of the Province of Pensylvania. Philadelphia, 1742 [i.e. 1743]. One volume.

First edition of this folio volume of colonial Pennsylvania’s Charters and Laws, documents in which "English concepts of liberty and self-government had been planted," published by Franklin per order of the Pennsylvania Assembly, one of only 120 copies printed, an especially rare association copy signed by William Pidgeon, dated by him on the title page. The Trenton home of Pidgeon was "occupied by the Hessians" in the Battle of Trenton, and this copy's distinctive provenance is heightened by a separate inscription noting purchase by leading Revolutionary-era publisher Zachariah Poulson, a key "printer for the State Senate," whose Philadelphia print shop was around the corner from Franklin’s. $32,000.

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THE FIRST SERIAL PRINTING OF THE U.S. CONSTITUTION

(CONSTITUTION) CAREY, Mathew, editor. American Museum, or Repository of Ancient and Modern Fugitive Pieces. Philadelphia, July-December, 1787.

First edition of a true American classic: Mathew Carey's American Museum for 1787 (Volume II: Nos. I-VI), containing in the September issue the first serial printing of the U.S. Constitution and featuring the first serial printings of the first six Federalist papers issued outside of New York City, in original marbled boards. $18,500.

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"SYMBOL OF THE FREE PRESS AS A BULWARK AGAINST TYRANNY"

(ZENGER, John Peter). Case and Tryal of John Peter Zenger of New-York. London, 1738.

Second English edition (first published in New York in 1736) of the landmark trial of John Peter Zenger that produced "one of the famous decisions in legal history," pivotal to "the creation of the Bill of Rights and freedom of the press… had a lasting impact on the development of a libertarian ideology in both England and America," soundly viewed as "one of the famous decisions in legal history, establishing the epochal doctrine of the freedom of the press"—"one of the most important events of colonial times," a splendid copy, handsomely bound. $16,000.

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"PURCHASE ALL THE GOOD RIFLES YOU CAN MEET WITH"

WAYNE, Anthony. Autograph letter signed. Philadelphia, February 24, 1776.

Exceptional February 1776 autograph signed letter from "Mad" Anthony Wayne to Captain John Lacey, ordering that Lacey—his longtime adversary—recruit men and round up enlistees in Bucks County; arrange for a commissioned officer to train those men at Darby; and purchase good rifles in preparation for marching toward New York in the build up for the Battle of Trois-Rivières. $15,500.

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ENGLISH LIBERTIES “HAD MORE TO DO WITH PREPARING THE MINDS OF AMERICAN COLONISTS FOR THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION THAN… COKE, SIDNEY AND LOCKE”

CARE, Henry. English Liberties. Providence, Rhode-Island, 1774.

1774 American edition of Care's immensely influential English Liberties, preceded only by the 1721 Boston edition, issued not long after the Boston Tea Party and the same year as the First Continental Congress, with printings of the Magna Charta, the Habeas Corpus Act (1769)—"a second Magna Charta"—and foundational texts on jury trials, "principally designed for America," containing printing of the preface to the 1721 edition proclaiming "when liberty is once gone, even life itself grows insipid," with rear list of Subscriber's Names. $13,500.

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"LET ALL NEW ENGLAND RISE AND CRUSH BURGOYNE" (WASHINGTON)

(AMERICAN REVOLUTION) BURGOYNE, John. State of the Expedition from Canada. London, 1780.

First edition of British officer Burgoyne's dramatic justification of his 1777 defeat by American Revolutionary forces at Saratoga. Intended to win the war for the British, it became "the turning point" in the war that "brought France openly into the struggle. And it led to a change in the British command and a fundamental alteration in strategy" (Wood, American Revolution), containing six large engraved folding maps and plans with handcolored details, two with hinged overslips illustrating changes in troop positions and movements, handsomely bound. $13,500.

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