“MY FAILURE; NOT THE ACTOR’S, LOVED BY ALL TO ART AND NATURE LOYAL”: HANDSOMELY BOUND FIRST EDITION OF STEDMAN’S AMERICAN ANTHOLOGY, 1900, FROM THE COLLECTION OF OPERA SINGER LULU GLASER, WITH STEDMAN’S FAIR AUTOGRAPH COPY OF “HAREBELL,” WRITTEN OUT FOR GLASER, TIPPED-IN

STEDMAN, Edmund Clarence. An American Anthology. 1787-1899. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin, 1900. Octavo, contemporary three-quarter brown morocco gilt rebacked with original spine laid down, raised bands, marbled boards and endpapers, top edge gilt, uncut and unopened.

First trade edition of Stedman’s “breviary of our national poetic legacies,” with a fair autograph copy in his hand of three stanzas from his ballad “Harebell” tipped-in, written out for turn-of-the-20th-century singer and actress Lulu Glaser, with her bookplate, handsomely bound.

“Easily the most popular and most highly esteemed member of the New York literary circle of his day” (DAB IX:553), poet (and stockbroker) Stedman presents selections from poets including Philip Freneau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Edgar Allan Poe, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson and James Whitcomb Riley (as well as some verse of his own)—“the breviary of our national poetic legacies from the 19th century to the 20th.” With engraved frontispiece portrait featuring several American poets and additional engraved title page. Also issued in a signed limited edition of 300 copies. Bookplate of singer and actress Lulu Glaser. “The singing lessons [Glaser] took since early childhood paid off when she managed to convince her parents to allow her to audition for a role in the Francis Wilson Opera Company. Wilson himself took an immediate liking to her and admitted her into his chorus. After six months, as a result of a cold that the leading lady had caught, Lulu Glaser was called upon to take her place as the star… The leading lady soon left the company, following Glaser’s immediate success as her replacement, and Glaser proceeded to take over all of her roles… By the 1895-96 season, Glaser was promoted to the role of prima donna … In 1900 Glaser left Wilson’s company to open the Lulu Glaser Opera Company” (Princeton University). Stedman made the tipped-in, fair autograph copy of the final three stanzas from “Harebell” for Glaser on January 18, 1901. The excerpt reads: “‘Bravo!’ cried I, ‘I too, the thrill / Must feel which thus your blood can waken.’ / And once I saw upon the bill / That part retaken; / But leagues of travel stretched between / Me and that idyl played so rarely: / And then—his death! nor had I seen / ‘The Man o’ Airlie.’ / My failure; not the actor’s, loved / By all to art and nature loyal; / Not his, whom Harebell’s passion proved / Of the blood royal.” Stedman wrote the ballad in 1891 in memory of American Shakesperean actor Lawrence Barrett (as the notation on the fair copy indicates).

A fine copy with a notable provenance, handsomely bound.