Catalogue:  Before Walden

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AUDUBON, John James (1785-1851)

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Birds of America, From Drawings made in the United States and their Territories

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1870 - Seventh Royal Octavo edition.  Published by George Lockwood.  Originally published as a series 1827-1838. 

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Eight Volumes.  Octavo.  Bound in embossed full leather with raised bands.  Title on spines and all edges gilt and inner gilt dentelles.  Marbled endpapers. Per seller:  "This rare edition collates the same as the reported copies at [UC Berkeley] and Cornell with each bearing the 1870 date and containing the index at the end of Volume VIII (which is lacking in other editions).  Other libraries report variant editions lacking the index and the 1870 date.  It is for this reason that later editions are reprinted without the index and the scarcity of this the last great and most preferred edition.  Each plate perfect lacking any of the browning or spotting as was present even in the Pirie copy....  This copy has been preserved with the original tissue guards and maintained in obvious ideal conditions.... Superb condition with the half-title present in all volumes."  Small bookplate of John L. Shelton, Chicago, on inside covers.  Otherwise, unmarked.  Absolutely no foxing.  Housed in custom slipcases.  F

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Audubon's Birds was originally published on a subscription basis in London and Edinburgh over twelve years.  Subscribers would receive five double elephant folio-sized plates at a time - the total subscription consisted of 435 plates engraved and hand-colored by Havell of London.  No more than 120 complete original sets are now known to exist, of perhaps 200 originally produced.  The most recent sale of an original at the time of this writing was for $11.5 million.  This Collection does not contain an original.  Separately, Audubon wrote (with substantial assistance from James MacGillivray - see both von Humboldt's Travels and Researches below, and Darwin) five volumes of accompanying text, called Ornithological Biography.  A full subscription to the original plates and texts cost about $1,000.  In 1844, Audubon published a more affordable royal octavo edition in seven volumes, working with lithographer J.T. Bowen.  This edition included 500 plates, some new and some with separate plates for birds which were originally shown together.  The seventh octavo edition was the last using the original plates before they were destroyed in warehouse fire and is the only edition to contain an index.  Considered one of the "important" octavo editions. 

 

According to William Reese's Stamped with a National Character (1999), the color quality of the plates of the octavo edition published by Lockwood is inferior to the original folio plates as well as the first octavo edition, published by Audubon himself, which was released in parts from 1840-44.  Per Reese, the Lockwood editions "are distinguished by having several tint stones printed on most of the plates prior to the application of hand coloring.  This reduced the amount of hand coloring applied to each plate.... production standards slipped.  The quality of color...does not compare to that of 1840."  (p.58).  They are still, however, quite beautiful.

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[Link to EC History section]

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AUDUBON, John Woodhouse (1812-1862)

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Audubon's Western Journal 1849-1850

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1906 - First edition.  Published by Arthur H. Clark Co.

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Bound in green cloth covered boards.  Unmarked save one bookplate on inside front cover (A.J. Tullock). No foxing - mint condition including numerous uncut pages.  Contains an eight-page intro by Frank Heywood Hodder, a professor of history at U. of Kansas, and an eighteen-page biographical memoir by the author's daughter Maria, who also transcribed the original journals (per the Intro).  Five full-page drawings by JWA and a large folding folded map at the end of the text showing the route traveled, followed by a ten-page publisher's catalogue.

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The journals are an account by JJ Audubon's son of a trip by a large group of men, which the author ultimately led, through Texas and northern Mexico to San Diego and the California gold fields.  The trip was very challenging and, according to his daughter's biographical memoir, broke him.  Author was an artist like his father but most of the work from this trip was lost when he had it shipped back East and the ship containing the work wrecked.

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BARTON, William P.C. (1786-1856)

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Flora of North America

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Three large volumes bound together, issued in 1821, 1822 and 1823.  - First (uncolored) edition.  Published by M. Carey (Vol 1) and H.C. Carey and I. Lea, all of Chestnut Street (Philadelphia).  From the private collection of William S. Reese.

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Modern brown cloth boards.  Volume III has moderate foxing and some damp staining to corners not impinging on text or images.  Unmarked.  106 uncolored plates - two folding - engraved by Cornelius Tiebout, the first quality engraver who was born in the U.S.  In very good shape.  With a sheet of instructions to the binder with errata - it appears the binder neglected to delete the first Advertisement of Volume I as directed, as both are present.  

 

Barton was trained as a physician and joined the U.S. Navy, where he made important contributions to medical practices, including writing a well-regarded Treatise on naval hospitals.  He ultimately was appointed as first head of the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery.  He also taught medical botany at the University of Pennsylvania.  He was a member of the Linnaean and Philosophical Societies.  In short, he was quite accomplished.

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The book was a significant achievement, described by Barton himself (not necessarily objectively) in the second Advertisement to the first volume as "the most extensive original work ever undertaken in this country...worthy the title of a NATIONAL WORK, exhibiting, in all its materials, specimens of American manufacture; and its execution be accomplished solely by American artists."

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This volume was purchased in Christie's online auction of the personal collection of William Reese with his bookplate on fpd, perhaps the most influential American rare book dealer and collector of the past half century - described in his 2018 NYT obituary as a "towering figure among rare-book dealers."  The auction, entitled "The Private Collection of William S. Reese:  Part Three" closed 6/2/2022.  This was lot 514.

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Barton is the son of William Barton, a Pennsylvania lawyer, scholar and, with Charles Thompson, the designer of The Great Seal of the United States.  The father's brother - William P.C. Barton's uncle - was Benjamin Smith Barton.  BS Barton was also Thomas Nuttall's mentor (see below).  BSB was a botanist, naturalist and physician who was one of the first professors of natural history in the US.  He built the largest collection of botanical specimens in the country and wrote the first American textbook on botany in 1803.  William Bartram often assisted him in his efforts, and BSB instructed Meriweather Lewis on botanical collecting before his expedition with William Clark.  BSB's son Thomas Pennant Barton was one of the most important book collectors in American history, including 2,000 of the rarest editions of Shakespeare's works which, along with 10,000 other books, was acquired by the Boston Public Library.

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BARTRAM, John (1699-1777) 

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Observations on the Inhabitants, Climate, Soil, Rivers, Productions, Animals, and other matters worthy of Notice Made by Mr. John Bartram, In his Travels from Pensilvania to Onondago, Oswego and the Lake Ontario, In Canada.  To which is annex'd a curious Account of the Cataracts at Niagara by Mr. Peter Kalm, A Swedish Gentleman who travelled there. [Photos]

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1751 - First edition.  Printed for J. Whiston and B. White, in Fleet St.  Priced at One Shilling and six pence.  Interesting contemporary marginalia re Bartram

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Bound in drab boards with calf spine, rebacked to style.  "Bartram Travels To Canada" label on spine.  From library of Bruce McKinney, his sale 12/2/2010, lot 64 (hammer price $8,540).  Ownership signature of one Frank N. Spencer dated 1955 and bookplate of Eugene & Sadye Power.  Includes foldout map before title page of the Town of Oswego.  First 79 pages are by Bartram, the last 15 by Kalm.  Lightly annotated, including the following marginalia:  "From my boyhood, I have been accustomed to respect the character of John Bartram; and however defective his work may be in style, the reader may confidently rely upon its truth.  T.C. (or TG)".  Publisher B. White is likely Benjamin White, brother of Gilbert White (Selborne) and, per preface of sixth ed. of Selborne, the preeminent London publisher of the time of works of natural history.  Very nice condition.  Housed with An Account and WB's Travels in a custom clamshell case.

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An Account of East-Florida, with a Journal, Kept By John Bartram of Philadelphia, Botanist to His Majesty For The Floridas; Upon A Journey from St. Augustine up the River St. John's [Photos]

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1766 - First edition.  Published ("Sold by") W. Nicoll and G. Woodfall of St. Paul's Church and Charing-Cross, respectively.  Price four shillings.

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Octavo.  19th-century mottled calf.  Bound with An Account of East Florida by William Stork, who also wrote an introduction to Bartram's Account.  This is the second edition of Stork's work, but the first of JB's.  Bookplate of owner Kenneth Nebenzahl, world-renowned book and map dealer who wrote six books on antique maps - his sale Christie's NY - 4/10/2012, lot 128 ($4,000 hammer price).  Also pasted to inner cover is what appears to be a blurb from an old catalogue listing the book which describes the binding as "full polished calf...gilt edges, by Riviere.  Fine copy."  Robert Riviere (1808-1882) was a famous 19th century bookbinder in Bath and then London.  The spine shows 1763 as the publication date, but that is likely the initial edition of Stork (Bartram's Journal starts Dec. 1765).  The 1766 publication date is not printed but has been handwritten in pencil on title page.  Nothing verifying Riviera binding, but appearance is consistent with his style.  Very tight, little to no foxing.  Housed with Observations and WB's Travels in custom clamshell case.

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John Bartram is the universally acknowledged father of American botany.  He was self-taught but traveled widely and had a thriving business sending samples to Europe through Peter Collison, who sold them on to as many as 57 clients including naturalists such as Linnaeus, who described JB as "the greatest natural botanist in the world."  JB corresponded with eminent European naturalists and was friends with Benjamin Franklin - he was the first member listed on the roster of the American Philosophical Society after Franklin.  He became Botanist to King George III in the 1765 and remained in that position through his death in 1777.  Collison wrote a preface to this volume, and had it printed without Bartram's knowledge - Collison notes that if JB knew it was to be published, he would have "made it probably more entertaining" and otherwise further edited it - in fact JB was somewhat annoyed when he got a copy of the book as he had wanted to edit and expand it before publication.  JB started America's first botanical garden, where he was likely the first American to experiment with hybridization.  The garden is still open to the public on the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia.  He was also father of William Bartram, author of Travels (1791) below.

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Peter Kalm, was a disciple of Carl Linnaeus' and "the first European thoroughly trained in Enlightenment Science to come to America."  Kalm's "description of Niagara is one of the early descriptions of American nature in the vein of the 'sublime,' an aesthetic category which would, in later time, elevate the literary respectability of wilderness considerably." [Lyon pp. 32-3]

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[Link to EC History section]​

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BARTRAM, William (1739-1823) 

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Travels Through North & South Carolina, Georgia, East & West Florida, The Cherokee Country, The Extensive Territories of the Muscogulges, or Creek Confederacy, and the Country of the Chactaws, Containing an Account of the Soil and Natural Productions of Those Regions Together With Observations on the Manners of the Indians [Photos]

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1791 - First edition.  Published by James & Johnson of Philadelphia

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Octavo.  Contemporary mottled sheep, rebacked to style using period leather, endpapers renewed but attractive.  Label faded but still legible.  Beautiful, tight copy.  Very light foxing.  Only marking to entire book is "Hillsborough [or Millsborough] Library Co.  May the 10th 1797" written in ink on last free endpaper before the title page and its facing page with an engraving of The King of the Seminoles.  Folding map of Coast of East Florida intact in excellent condition, as is folding botanical plate at p. 380.  Other plates at pps 20, 26, 176 (2) and 476. Housed with John Bartram's two books in a custom clamshell case.

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From its publication onward Travels has been celebrated for its scientific contributions, it's descriptive, sensitive and nuanced description of the Native Americans who WB encountered in his travels and its original and lyrical prose about the places he traveled.  His work had a significant impact on many authors, including Emerson, Coleridge and Wordsworth.  After publishing Travels, among many other things he tutored young Alexander Wilson in ornithology and natural history illustration and mentored Thomas Nuttall.  Wilson and Nuttall became two of the foremost American ornithologists of their, or any, time.

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[Link to EC History section]​

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BERNARDIN DE SAINT-PIERRE, Jacques Henri (1737-1814)  

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Studies of Nature

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1796 - Second edition.  Five volumes.  First English language edition.  First published 1784.  Printed for C. Dilly, in the Poultry, London. 

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This edition includes a 14-page introduction by translator Henry Hunter (Minister of the Scots Church in London-Wall) and a new 26-page "Advertisement" (Prelude) by BSP.  Original marble boards rebacked with cloth.  Multiple plates, some folding.  Offsetting on pages facing plates, moderate foxing.

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BSP was best known for his novel Paul & Virginie, but was also a botanist of note and a mentee of Rousseau.  His natural history sought to bridge scientific thinking of the day with religious teachings.  

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CATLIN, George (1796-1872)

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Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Condition of the North American Indians

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1841 -  Two volumes.  First edition, first printing.  Published by the Author, at the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly

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Large octavo.  Slightly later green cloth boards preserving original paper spine labels.  Errata slip tipped in on verso of engraved frontispiece.  "Frederick" instead of "Zedekiah" in biblical quote on p. 104.  With several hundred black-and-white illustrations "carefully engraved" from Catlin's original paintings.  This work was published by Catlin in London when he brought his exhibition of paintings there.  Folding map of the US immediately before the text of Vol. 1 showing the location of tribes in 1833.  A note below refers to the frontispiece of Vol. 2, being a one-page map of the area between the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains, and notes that by 1840 all of the states to the west of the Mississippi had "removed" resident tribes.  The folding map also, movingly, shows the then extant range of the American bison.  Light to moderate foxing throughout but very solid and unmarked.  At least VG.

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Why is a book primarily about Native Americans in this Collection?  In short, Catlin was amongst the first to propose wholesale preservation of extensive natural areas for posterity, in addition to being extraordinarily (for his time) sympathetic to the plight of the Native Americans, the American bison, and their historic homelands.  See the EC History section.

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[Link to EC History section]​​

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COLE, Thomas (1801-1848)

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Essay on American Scenery

[From a book containing the first six issues of American Monthly Magazine]

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1836 - Otis, Broaders & Co. of Boston and George Dearborn of New York

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Cole's important essay was read at the National Academy of Design (per Nash) in May 1835 and published in the January 1836 edition of American Monthly Magazine.  This item is a bound 632-page book entitled American Monthly Magazine: New Series Vol I and contains the Jan-Jun issues of 1836.  It is (conveniently) the first item in the book after the Table of Contents.  The book itself was once well bound in quarter (or less) leather with marbled boards and endpapers, but the leather spine has perished and the strips along the boards are nearly gone - the front board is just about to separate.  The text block is clean, tight and only lightly foxed.  There are six engraved plates and two tipped-in errata slips, including one over the title page.  Fair

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In a reflection of my complete nerdiness, I find absolutely delicious the fact that the founder of American Monthly Magazine and editor from 1833-1836 was none other than Henry William Herbert, better known as Frank Forester, whose Frank Forester's Field Sports (1849) is Catalogued below.

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Thomas Cole is known primarily for his paintings of the natural world, the first significant American landscape painter and the primary founder of the Hudson River School of art.  He and his influence as an artist are discussed in various places throughout this site, and engravings after his painting are reproduced in Home Book of the Picturesque (1850 - Anthologies).  

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As discussed in Nash (pp 80-1), Cole in 1835 had recently returned from an extended trip to Europe.  This was a period when Europe was perceived to be superior to America in virtually all respects, including its scenery, which everywhere reflected the impacts of human "civilization" - there was virtually no wilderness left, at least in western Europe.  Cole acknowledges in his essay the value of the overlay of human "civilization" on European scenery but importantly, celebrates the wildness of American scenery as its equal in quality.  Similarly, Cole's art depicts the American landscape as a natural paradise, particularly compared to the smog-ridden streets of Britian in the throes of the Industrial Revolution, where he was born and raised.  The burgeoning appreciation for the American landscape was an important transition, and Cole's was prominent voice in that transition through both his brush and his quill.

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[See EC History Chapter for more]

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COOPER, Susan Fenimore (1813-1894)

[Credited to "A Lady"]

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Rural Hours

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1850 - First edition.  Published by George P. Putnam. 

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Octavo.  Original green cloth boards embossed with intricate gilt line design.  Gilt-edged pages.  Two owners' signatures, otherwise unmarked.  Some foxing.  

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Credited to "A Lady", with SFC's name never appearing.  Copyright issued to her father, James Fenimore Cooper.  Lest one believe women do not remain subject to bias, implicit or otherwise, SFC at the time I write this is referred to in Wikipedia as an "amateur" naturalist, an adjective notably missing from the descriptions of other self-taught naturalists such as, for example, John James Audubon and John Burroughs.  Rural Hours was Cooper's second and most successful book, praised for its precision and attention to detail.  It was commented upon favorably by Darwin and influenced Thoreau's Walden.  It was the first work of literary non-fiction by an American woman and was prescient in its call for forest preservation.  It underwent nine editions in the 40 years following publication.

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[Link to EC History section]​

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CREVECOEUR, J. Hector St. John de (1735-1813)

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Letters from an American Farmer: Describing Certain Provincial Situations, Manners, and Customs, not Generally Known, and Conveying Some Idea of the Late and Present Circumstances of the British Colonies in North America; Written for the Information of a Friend in England by J. Hector St. John; A Farmer in Pennsylvania

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1782 - First edition - published UK.  "Printed for Thomas Davies in Russell Street, Covent-Garden and Lockyer Davis in Holburn."

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Full calf, likely rebound.  Seven cords across binding.  Red leather title patch on spine reading "Letters from a Farmer."  Interesting and varied provenance.  Bookplate of James Strohn Copley on fpd [see also Clarence King (1872), with Copley's bookplate, with a brief description of Copley].  Fpd has ink and penciled ownership sigs of John Bousquet Jr. of Philadelphia, both dated 1819.  Also, two stamps from the Rhode Island Historical Society, one noting it was part of the Joseph J. Cooke bequest of 1893.  Folding maps of Nantucket at 123 and Martha's Vineyard at 160.  Clean + tight VG.

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Writes Huth (pps 21-3 of the Bison edition):  

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For years after the publication of his Letters of an American Farmer the work was regarded as a fundamental source book.... in 1770, he wrote his famous essay on John Bartram, who had received him into the large circle of his friends.... But the truth remains that his sympathetic descriptions of natural scenery and his directness in reporting his observations and impressions are outstanding characteristics of his writing.  Although William Bartram's more lyrical manner of writing differs from Crevecoeur's forceful style, both men were lovers of nature.  Their descriptions of the natural landscape and its effect on their emotions were sound beginnings in the development of nature interpretation and set an example for later naturalists.... One of the feelings that Crevecoeur was instrumental in passing on to those who lived in his time or immediately after him was the great happiness that he always felt when in the woods.... [I]t is known that the Lake poets of England were influenced by Crevecoeur's idealistic attitude, his development of nature appreciations.... Here is not only great admiration for nature but perhaps the beginning of a feeling that man can render himself [or herself] independent of nature's evils.... The Bartrams and Crevecoeur were but a few of the distinguished men in that continually enlarging group of nature enthusiasts comprised of learned men and amateurs of both sexes [an interesting delineation].  In the minds of these progressive persons, traditional, dogmatic limitations vanished and prejudices were abolished.  An entirely new relationship began to be established between man and nature...."

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Crèvecœur was born to French nobility, presumably as a younger son.  In 1755 he migrated to North America, serving in the French and Indian War as a cartographer, rising to the rank of lieutenant.  Following the defeat of the French Army in 1759 he moved to New York, took out citizenship, and adopted the name of John Hector St. John.  He bought a sizable farm in Chester, a small town (getting larger now) in Orange County.  Crevecoeur also worked as a surveyor.  He started writing about life in the American colonies and the emergence of an American society.  During the American Revolution, he tried to return to France due to the faltering health of his father. Accompanied by his son, he crossed British lines to enter NYC, where he was imprisoned as an American spy for three months.  Eventually, he was able to sail for Britain and was shipwrecked off the coast of Ireland.  From Britain, he sailed to France, where he was briefly reunited with his father.

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In 1782, in London, he published Letters from an American Farmer. The book quickly became the first literary success by an American author in Europe and turned Crèvecœur into a celebrated figure. He was the first writer to describe to Europeans – employing many American English terms – the life on the American frontier and to explore the concept of the American Dream, portraying American society as characterized by the principles of equal opportunity and self-determination.  The writing celebrated American ingenuity and the uncomplicated lifestyle.  It described the acceptance of religious diversity in a society being created from a variety of ethnic and cultural backgrounds.  (Per the Wikipedia entry on Crevecoeur)

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The book is dedicated to Abbé Raynal:  "Behold, Sir, an humble American Planter, a simple cultivator of the earth, addressing you from the farther side of the Atlantic, and presuming to fix your name at the head of his trifling lucebrations.  I wish they were worthy of so great an honor....For the first time in my life [having read Raynal], I reflected on the relative slate of nations; I traced the extended ramifications of a commerce which ought to unite, but now convulses the world; I admired that universal benevolence, that...extends to the whole human race.... [Y]ou have pleaded with the cause of humanity in espousing that of the poor Africans; you viewed these provinces of North America in their true light, as the asylum of freedom; as the cradle of future nations, and the refuge of distressed Europeans.... Your very sincere admirer...."  Written in Carlisle, PA (SW of Harrisburg).  

 

The success of the book in France led to Crevecouer being appointed the French consul for New York.  Anxious to be reunited with his family, he learned that his farm had been destroyed in an Indian raid, his wife was dead, and his two younger children missing.  He ultimately learned they were safe and living with a family in Boston.

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The town of St. Johnsbury, Vermont, is named after him, as suggested by Ethan Allen.

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[Link to EC History section]

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DARWIN, Erasmus (1731-1802)

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Zoonomia; or the Laws of Organic Life (Second Part)

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1797 - First American edition.  Two volumes.  Originally published 1794-6.  T. Dobson, Philadelphia.

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This is the Second Part only, of three total, consisting of the classification of diseases broken out per Linnaeus' system of Order, Genus and Species.  Forward by Charles Caldwell, M.D., a member of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia and the American Philosophical Society.  Original binding - quarter sheep, red leather title labels.  Page edges rough cut.  Unmarked and lightly foxed.  VG+. 

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Erasmus was Charles Darwin's grandfather, a very successful medical doctor, considered the finest of the era (he turned down multiple requests to serve as the King's personal physician as he didn't particularly like the King).  Zoonomia is a medical book but contains proto-evolutionary evolutionary concepts similar to those subsequently espoused by Lamarck, whose work also foreshadowed the modern theory of evolution.  E. Darwin wrote in Zoonomia:

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Would it be too bold to imagine, that in the great length of time, since the earth began to exist, perhaps millions of ages before the commencement of the history of mankind, would it be too bold to imagine, that all warm-blooded animals have arisen from one living filament, which the first great cause endued with animality, with the power of acquiring new parts, attended with new propensities, directed by the irritations, sensations, volitions, and associations; and thus possessing the faculty of continuing to improve by its own inherent activity, and of delivering down those improvements by generation to its posterity, world without end!  [Quoted in Browne's biography of Darwin, Vol I, pg 84 - see References].

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Annoyingly, this quote and the broader discussion on development occurs in the chapter on Generation towards the end of Part I.  This Collection has only Part II.  

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In any case, Zoonomia was closely read by Charles Darwin when he was in university, and he could scarcely have failed to be influenced by it.  E. Darwin was quite progressive for his time - atheistic in view, an ardent abolitionist, a translator of Linnaeus, an inventor and leader.  His reference in the quote to the age of the earth was certainly not universally, or even generally, embraced at the time he wrote.​​

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ELLIOTT, William [The Hon. W.M.]  (1788-1863)

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Carolina Sports by Land and Water; Including Devil-Fishing, Wild-Cat, Deer, and Bear Hunting, &c.

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1867 - First English edition.  First published in the U.S. in 1846.  Richard Bentley, London

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Original green embossed cloth boards with crisp gilt lettering to spine.  Two-page publisher's catalogue at rear.  No markings or bookplates.  Minimal foxing.  NF

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Elliott was one of South Carolina's wealthiest planters, scion of a distinguished family, and resident of Beaufort, South Carolina.  He hunted and fished extensively in the Carolina low country.  The Library of Congress describes the book as "an early example of the hunter-as-conservationist, a phenomenon which became increasingly important for conservation."  [https://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amrvhtml/cnchron1.html].  Elliott writes:  "Thus thinking of the value of amusement in general, and of hunting in particular, I cannot but perceive with regret, that there are causes in operation which have destroyed, and are yet destroying, the game to that extent that, in another generation, this manly pastime will no longer be within our reach.... It is the wanton, the uncalled-for destruction of forests and of game, that I reprehend."  [p. 283]. 

 

As was common amongst his class of men, Elliott was active politically.  He was a defender of slavery but also a staunch Unionist, an unpopular stance amongst his constituents, which led to the end of his political career in 1831.

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[Link to EC History section]

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EMERSON, George B. (1797-1881)

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Report on the Trees and Shrubs Growing Naturally in the Forests of Massachusetts

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1846 - First edition.  "Published Agreeably to an order of the Legislature, by the Commissioners on the Zoological and Botanical Survey of the State."  Dutton & Wentworth, State Printers

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Quarto.  Brown leather spine and corners with marbled boards and endpapers.  Top edge of text block in gilt.  Five raised bands to spine.  Gilt lettering on spine crisp.  May have been rebound in contemporary style given condition.  No markings save some penciled jottings regarding binding on rear endpaper.  17 plates after text before index.  Moderate foxing.  A beautiful, tight book.  VG++ to NF.

 

As discussed in the History section, Emerson's anticipated some of George Perkins Marsh's arguments in Man and Nature (1864) - some scholars argue that Emerson's book marks the true beginning of the American environmental conservation movement. 

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Emerson was primarily an educator.  He was for many years president of the Boston society of natural history and was appointed chair of the commissioners for the zoological and botanical survey of Massachusetts.​  He worked on the Survey for nine summers while teaching ten months each year.  The work was popular and "universally" praised for its "lucidity and contagious enthusiasm." 

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Per John Burroughs' biographer Edward Renehan (see References) GBE was a cousin of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who recommended this book to John Burroughs and Myron Benton when they met RWE and spent time with him in June 1863 following an RWE lecture near West Point.

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In the 1870's, Emerson served with Franklin Hough on an important subcommittee of the American Association for the Advancement of Science whose work led directly to the creation of the first federal forestry position.  (See Hough (1882)).

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[Link to EC History section]

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GILPIN, William (1724-1804)

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Three Essays: On Picturesque Beauty; On Picturesque Travel; and On Sketching Landscape: to which is added a poem, on Landscape Painting

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Also bound in:  An Essay on Prints (Stated Fourth Edition dated 1792 - first published in 1768) 

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1792 - First edition.  Printed for R. Blamire, in the Strand [London].  From the private collection of William S. Reese

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Tall octavo.  Contemporary full straight-grained red morocco with gilt border on covers and lettering on spine, and gilded page edges and inner dentelles.

 

Gilpin was the primary progenitor of the concept of "Picturesque" - an aesthetic ​movement initially focused on landscape painting - or as Gilpin defined it "that peculiar kind of beauty which is agreeable in a picture."  Gilpin was unusual for his time and influential in his appreciation of natural landscapes for their own sake, independent of utility or morality.  His Picturesque concept had a "lasting effect" on the way we came to view the landscape and landscape design.

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More specifically, as Hans Huth says:  "Gilpin's discovery was a prelude to the ideas that were popular in the romantic period...it was he who in many ways gave vision to the eyes of those who looked upon the American scene."

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The idea of "Picturesque" was a powerful one.  It was primarily an artistic construct - but a construct that governed not just how artists portrayed nature but how people who sought out nature attempted to frame or view it.  Sue Rainey (see References) describes the difference between "beautiful," "picturesque," and "sublime".  The notable point is her conclusion that, in the 19th century, there was a broad understanding of the difference - an understanding which Gilpin's work effectively launched.  [See Home Book of the Picturesque (1852) and Picturesque America (1872-4), both in Anthologies, for concrete examples.]

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This volume was purchased in Christie's online auction of the personal collection of William Reese with his bookplate on fpd and penciled notes to inside ffe - Reese was perhaps the most influential American rare book dealer and collector of the past half century - described in his 2018 NYT obituary as a "towering figure among rare-book dealers."  The auction, entitled "The Private Collection of William S. Reese:  Part Three" closed 6/2/2022.  This was lot 460.

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[Link to EC History section]​​

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HEADLEY, J.T. (1813-1897)

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The Adirondack; or Life in the Woods

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1849 - First edition.  Baker and Scribner

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Bound in beautiful tooled full brown leather with a gilt design of two adventurers on front cover.  Gilt title on spine clear.  Seven plates with tissue guards by various artists, all engraved by "Burt", likely Charles Burt who later engraved the portrait of Lincoln used on the $5 bill until 2000.  Bookplate and some pencil markings on inside cover, prior owner's sig on ffe dated 1849, no other markings.  Light to moderate foxing.

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This was the first popular account of the Adirondacks and was influential in spurring travel there, along with William Murray's Adventures in the Wilderness (1869).  An NYT review of the second edition of 1854 states JTH "made his pioneer exploration of the then little known and less regarded region of the Adirondack. Since then the circulation of ten thousand copies of his vivid and spirited sketches of wild life has drawn general attention to the vast untrodden wilderness of New-York State, until what was then an enterprise to be undertaken with toil and labor, is now within the reach of every summer traveler."  [Source:  NYT].  JTH was originally a minister but had some sort of nervous breakdown, leading to his travels for health reasons to the mountains.  He later published several popular history books, became editor of the New York Tribune under Greeley and served for a time both as a NYS assemblyman and as Secretary of State of NY.

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HERBERT, Henry William (1807-1858)

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Frank Forester's Field Sports of the United States and British Provinces of North America

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1849 - First edition, second printing.  Two volumes.  Stringer & Townsend.  With bookplate of Herbert bibliographer William Van Winkle.

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Original brown blind stamped cloth with bright gilt including vignette of sportsman's bag on covers.  Tissue-guarded frontispieces.  Light foxing throughout.  Bookplates of William Van Winkle on fpd of each volume.  Van Winkle published a bibliography of Herbert's works in 1936.  Per seller James Cummins, Van Winkle notes in his bibliography that the book was published in London on 13 September (with title page dated 1848) and in New York on 23 October (with the title page dated 1849).  Van Winkle further notes that it was announced for 1 October in American periodicals.  This edition conforms with BAL's second printing (which I interpret to mean the first American printing, of 23 October) - the title pages are integral and the printer's imprint on the title page verso is the same in each volume.  In addition to the frontispieces, each volume has five full-page woodcut engravings by Herbert himself, with the engravings ascribed in the "Advertisement" (Preface) to Mr. Read.  Per the title page, publisher Stringer & Townsend was a recent successor to the firm Burgess, Stringer & Co.  Acquired in green cloth slipcase with chemise.  NF+ to F.

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Herbert wrote extensively about sporting pursuits under the name Frank Forester for Spirit of the Times, an early sporting magazine.  The volumes are, as best I can tell, an anthology of those pieces.  Hans Huth in Nature and the American writes that until the mid-19th century there was a widespread antipathy towards sporting for pleasure.  Writes Huth about Herbert's writings as Forester:  

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These publications did a great deal to rid the ordinary American of his bias against sports.  Gradually it was recognized that Herbert's writings stimulated in his readers a very strong desire for the life of the hunter and fisherman and the public acquired an understanding of what it really meant to be active in field sports.  After young Americans of all classes began to learn the rules of fair play and gentlemanly behavior in outdoor sports, public opinion did an about-face and the hunter came to be looked upon as a skilled woodsman, truly representative of his country....  Long after Herbert's death his sporting books were reprinted again and again; the most famous, Field Sports, published in 1848, went through more than twenty printings.  This man, well in advance of his time - "Our Frank," as he was called by a large fraternity of genuine sportsmen - indeed deserves his name as the father of American woodcraft literature."  [Huth, p. 56, Bison Books edition of 1990].

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Herbert himself was an interesting cat.  Per his Wikipedia entry, his father was the son of an Earl (presumably not the first son), and Herbert was educated at Eton and Cambridge.  But having "lost his property through a dishonest agent," he moved to America in 1831, where he taught Latin and Greek at a private school and started a magazine.  He published a number of novels.  "Edgar Allen Poe felt that he was 'not unapt to fall into pompous grandiloquence' and sometimes was 'woefully turgid', while others saw his novels as 'prolix, lacking in imagination and humor.'"  [Wikipedia entry as of May 2023, which notes that the quotes within lack citations.]  He is described as a "man of varied accomplishments" - a classical scholar with few equals in America who translated several novels of Sue and Dumas into English and contributed to The New American Cyclopedia.  He was also "a pen-and-ink artist of marked ability."  But he was apparently incredibly stuck-up given his breeding and had few friends.  His first wife died and his second divorced him after three months.  He killed himself in 1858, friendless and lonely.

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Herbert was not a conservationist in the traditional sense.  His writings are an early example of sportsmen decrying the impact of wanton killing on game stocks.  He does not attribute the loss to lack of habitat - indeed he opines that notwithstanding spreading agriculture there will always be habitat given the vastness of the country and the abundance of non-arable land.  However, per Huth, his books and articles were an important fulcrum in the shift towards sportsmen being appreciated and, in turn, appreciating the environment in which they practiced.  

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As an interesting PS - the book is dedicated to Wade Hampton:  "To Colonel Wade Hampton, &c, &c, &c, of "The Woodlands," South Carolina, This work on the Field Sports of the United States and British Provinces of North America is very respectfully dedicated, as a tribute of homage to The First Sportsman in the land; By his Obb't Serv't/Frank Forester."  Hampton of course went on to become a Confederate general in the Civil War who saw significant action.  He was a white supremacist who, post-war, served as governor and senator for South Carolina and was a major figure in the efforts to defeat reconstruction efforts.  So goes Herbert.

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[Link to EC History section]

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von HUMBOLDT, ALEXANDER (1769-1859)

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Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain; Containing Researches Relative to the Geography of Mexico, the extent of its Surface and its political Division into Intendancies, the physical Aspect of the Country, the Population, the State of Agriculture and Manufacturing and Commercial Industry, the Canals projected between the South Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, the Crown Revenues, the Quantity of Precious Metals which have flowed from Mexico into Europe and Asia since the Discovery of the New Continent, and the Military Defense of New Spain

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1811 - First English-language edition.  Four volumes.  First published in French 1811.  Also published in German serially 1808-12.  Translated from the French by John Black.  Published in London by Edinburgh, Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown and H. Colburn

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Octavo.  Four volumes, lacks Atlas volume.  Contemporary hardcover and calf with recently renewed spines preserving original or contemporary spine labels.  VG with minor browning, offsetting, foxing and external wear.  Bookplate of Robert Groat M.D. to each front pastedown and 19th century stamps of "Solicitors Supreme Court Library" to each title page and some maps.  Volume I has two Aquatints showing mountain/volcano scenes, one folding "Reduced Map of the Kingdom of Spain" from the 16th to the 38th parallel (actually 40th but less detailed between 38 and 40) and folding topographical chart, as well as other maps.  Vol III has fold-out "Map of the different Channels by which the precious metals flow from the one Continent to the other" (being a map of the world upon which Australia is depicted as New Holland).  Vol IV includes large foldout map "Points of Separation and Projected Communications between the South Sea and Atlantic Ocean" along with smaller maps on reverse side, and a fold-out set of charts and diagrams showing mining output etc.

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Alexander von Humboldt was a wealthy, self-funded explorer with an unusually (even for the time) broad-based knowledge of science, philosophy and art.  He was granted authority by the Spanish crown to undertake an extensive exploratory voyage throughout various Spanish colonies, including what are now Cuba, Venezuela, Columbia, Peru, Ecuador and Mexico, being the Spanish colony of New Spain from northern South America into the southwestern portion of what is now the U.S.  The trip lasted for five years (1799-1804).  He spent the balance of his life writing prodigiously on topics both broad and specific, mostly stemming from this trip and a later trip to Russia.  

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The Preface to the first volume by the translator John Black offers some interesting comments:  "M. de Humboldt belongs to a higher order of travellers (sic), to whom the public have of late been very little accustomed....his works will probably be long considered as authorities....He seems to be a stranger to few departments of learning or science....".  Black remarks on the disadvantages of von Humboldt's having had to submit the manuscript to the Spanish crown for approval prior to publication:  The work "was submitted to a very severe trial...We never talk of our friends so candidly before their faces as behind their backs.  In the former case we say nothing but the truth, but we are seldom disposed to say the whole truth."  Black is certainly not a sycophant:  "M. de Humboldt has brought forward a great mass of information regarding New Spain, a country of which we before knew very little indeed....Yet it is to be regretted that the author could not throw occasionally more rapidity into his descriptions, and give somewhat more condensation to his materials.  He is sometimes rather apt to indulge in repetition, and to swell his accounts with circumstances by no means essential to be told, but which have a necessary tendency to fatigue the attention of the reader.  This failing is not peculiar to M. de Humboldt, but is common to him with too many authors, and particularly those of his own country, Germany."  Certainly, the work is extraordinarily broad in its scope, covering everything from geography, climate, soils, people, politics, history and antiquities, agriculture and mining, among other things, thus reflecting von Humboldt's extraordinary breadth of interest and expertise.

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The Travels and Researches of Alexander von Humboldt; A Condensed Narrative of his Journeys in the Equinoctial Regions of America, and in Asiatic Russia - Together with Analyses of his More Important Investigations

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1833.  Published by J&J Harper, Cliff St., New York. 

 

Sextodecimo.  Personal Narrative was published in English, translated by Helen Maria Williams, over a period from 1814-1825.  The copy in the Collection is a later condensed edition, published in NY in 1833, edited and with additional analysis provided by William MacGillivray, a prominent Scottish natural historian who coincidentally was an assistant professor of Natural History at the University of Edinburgh while Darwin was attending that school (from 1825-1827).  Per Darwin's biographer Browne, "Darwin...claimed he learned much more from talking with the museum's curator, William MacGillivray, a rough-hewn Scot who later became professor of natural history at Aberdeen University....MacGillivray gave him some rare shells and information about birds as well as his time."  [Browne, Vol 1., p. 72].  MacGillivray was also friends with Audubon and helped write substantial portions of his Ornithological Biographies.  Volume is tight and sound.  Original binding?  Eight-page pub catalogue at rear with last endpaper partially adhered to last page of catalogue.  Stamp of Dr. F.W. Sullivan, Veterinarian on front pastedown.  Most copies of this work offered for sale as this is being written were published in 1836 as "third edition" by Oliver & Boyd. 

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Cosmos: A Sketch of a Physical Description of the Universe

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1849 - Five volumes.  Published by Henry G. Bohm as a part of Bohn's Scientific Library.  Translated from the German by E.C. (Elise C.) Otte. 

 

Cosmos was published in five volumes over time, in 1845, 47, 49, 57 and (posthumously) in 1862; this is a translation of the first two volumes of the five.  (The last three were of a specialized scientific nature and much less popular).  Beautifully bound in full brown calf with six intricately tooled compartments on spine.  Marbled endpapers and text-block edges.  Bound by Townsend (likely William Townsend of Sheffield) with his small stamp at top of each inside free endpaper.  Bookplate of L'Olivette (of whom I could find no record) on each of the five volumes.  Otherwise unmarked - solid and tight.  Foxing to some of the volumes.  Bohn's was one of three contemporary English translations, of which John Murray's was the "authorized" one.  Bohn was famous for his various "Libraries" designed for the common man.  He ultimately published over 600 volumes in various Libraries, including Standard, Scientific, Illustrated, Classical, etc.  Otte was a Danish-English scholar who published important grammars of Danish and Swedish as well as translating various works by von Humboldt from the German.  She also translated published works from the French.

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[Link to EC History section]

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JEFFERSON, Thomas (1743-1826)

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Notes on the State of Virginia

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1801 - First published 1785.  Published by R.T. Rawle, Philadelphia.

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First Hot-Pressed Edition, per the title page.  First published anonymously in a limited edition in Paris in 1785, then in 1787 in London.  Per seller, this is the first American edition that was complete with maps and folding plate, and the first published after Jefferson became president.  This was Jefferson's only full-length book.  Three maps, including one folding - A Map of the State of Virginia, which is described as "Compiled for Rawle's Hot-pressed Edition of Jefferson's Notes."  A folding plate shows "A View of the Natural Bridge in Virginia" and the engraved frontspiece is a portrait of Jefferson by William Harrison, Jr.  Also included are Jefferson's famous first inaugural address and an appendix containing his correspondence about the Logan massacre of a friendly Native American family in SW VA in Lord Dunmore's War in 1774.  Rebound in antique-style calf.  Frontispiece and folding pages heavily foxed.  Tanning to certain sections of text, not affecting legibility.  G+

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[Link to EC History section]​

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JOSSELYN, John (1638-1675)

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New England's Rarities Discovered: in Birds, Beasts, Fishes, Serpents, and Plants of that Country

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1865 - Limited edition of 75 copies.  First published 1672 (or 1671, depending on source).  Published by William Veazie, Boston.  Veazie published both of Josselyn's books in 1865 in limited edition - see below for the other one.  Marbled boards with quarter leather including corners.  Six raised bands on spine.  Text block entirely clean.  Marbled endpapers.  Clean.  VG+

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Intro by Professor Edward Tuckerman, M.A.  [Tuckerman was a botanist who today is best known for a ravine in the White Mountains which, despite best intentions, I have never skied.  it has been on the bucket list for a long time.]  In 1865 (at the end of the Civil War) Veazie republished New England Rarities and An Account (see below), both in limited edition.  The edition for Rarities was limited to 75, but the edition/print number was not written into this volume. 

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Publisher Veazie (see below also) took pains to get it right:  "In the reproduction of this quaint and curious treatise, which is one of the earliest, on the Natural History of New England, it has been the intention of the Publisher to enhance its value as a literary curiosity, by making it as nearly as possible an exact Fac-simile of the original edition....  In the furtherance of this intention, the precise orthography, punctuation, and also the arrangement, - with the exception of the commencement and termination of pages, - have been preserved."

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Tuckerman's Intro runs to 27 pages, with lengthy footnotes, tracing Josselyn's lineage to a peerage, once upon a time.  Tuckerman proceeds to expound on the journeys which resulted in Josselyn's books.  He goes into the botany that Josselyn afforded:  "There is no work of any size or importance on New England plants, after Josselyn, for the whole century which followed."  Tuckerman continues to describe and contrast the works of Winthrop, Cutler et al.  

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An Account of Two Voyages to New-England Made during the years 1638 -1663

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1865 - Limited edition of 250 copies.  First published 1674.  Published by William Veazie, Boston.  Ex libris Justin Winsor

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Bound in publisher's brown cloth boards.  Text block clean.  With ownership signature and stamp of Justin Winsor (1831-97).  Winsor was a prominent historian, author, cartographer and librarian at the Harvard and Boston Public Libraries.  He is described as "one of the leading cartographers in the United States" in Penelope Noyes' biography [hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu].  He was the first president of the American Library Association and third president of the American Historical Association.  [See Clarence King for another book previously owned by Winsor].  Also has a "Cancelled" stamp from the Massachusetts Historical Society over the Society's bookplate upon which is handwritten "Estate of Penelope Noyes".  Noyes (1891-1977) was Winsor's grandchild.  VG+ in what appears to be original binding.

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An Account was a follow-on to Josselyn's New England Rarities Discovered (1672) - see above.  Josselyn visited his brother outside Boston twice, for 15 months in 1638 and for another eight years ending 1670.  Little is known about him, but he was possibly a physician as he notes medicinal qualities of many plant and animal bits.  He is described as highly educated, wide-eyed and delightful innocent.  But he made a very valuable contributions to the botanical record of early colonial New England, particularly changes that took place between his two trips.  Thoreau very much admired his work.

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[Link to EC History section]​

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