“THE GRANDFATHER OF CIVIL WAR HISTORIES”: ILLUSTRATED WITH OVER A THOUSAND BRADY PHOTOGRAPHS, A STUNNING COPY IN SCARCE PUBLISHER’S THREE-QUARTER MOROCCO AND ORIGINAL DUST JACKETS

MILLER, Francis Trevelyan, editor. The Photographic History of the Civil War. New York: Review of Reviews, 1912. Ten volumes. Quarto, publisher's three-quarter navy morocco gilt, elaborately gilt-decorated spines and boards, top edges gilt, original dust jackets.

Second edition set of Miller’s famous and important 10-volume photographic history of the Civil War, containing “thousands of scenes photographed 1861-65, with text by many special authorities.” Splendidly bound in the very scarce publisher’s morocco, and with the equally scarce publisher's dust jackets.

"This mammoth work… a necessary part of any civil war library," contains contributions from over 39 eminent individuals, including academicians, President William H. Taft, and veteran officers of both Confederate and Union forces, many of whom wrote from personal experience. A number of the photographs, previously unpublished, are from the collections of private individuals, including the extensive Eldridge Collection of Mathew Brady Civil War photographs, "easily five times larger than that of any contemporary" (Everitt). "Zealous in their work, often regardless of danger, and at all times handicapped by the vexing difficulties of the photographic process of that day," Brady and his assistants "carried their cameras to every scene that promised an interesting picture," capturing "scenes of actual conflict, others of places devastated by gunfire, of troops on the march or in bivouac, and of individual officers and men" (DAB). Volume X is the second issue (with revised index, marked "2-Ed." in bottom margin of page 323). Although we can find no record indicating that copies in the publisher's deluxe morocco were issued in dust jackets, the pristine condition of these volumes indicates that they almost certainly have always been protected by the jackets. Eicher 771. Nicholson, 516.

Books pristine, the finest copies we have ever seen, with dust jackets in equally extraordinary condition, with only a few minor closed tears and one small stain. A stunning copy.