May-Day and Other Pieces (Signed and inscribed by Emerson) by Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1803-1882) - 1867

Inscribed by Ralph Waldo Emerson to his good friend and prominent Boston physician Le Baron Russell (1814-1888). This is one of approximately 100 copies in the cream linen binding for presentation. Received from the publisher on April 27, 1867, Inscribed 1 May 1867 dated as in all of the earliest known copies of which only a handful are known to have survived and an important association copy. Not only was he Emerson's best man at his marriage in 1835 but when their house was destroyed by fire, he led the campaign of leading men of Boston in funding a new home. He contributed an estimated $10,000 to the new home in 1872 which was a small fortune in that era (just as he had given money to Walt Whitman during the Civil War to help the Union wounded and dying). As he visited Emerson, in his friend's last year of his life, Dr. Russell sadly noted how the memory was in decline though his voice and charming manner never left him. Dr. Russell was on the Board of Overseers at Harvard. Upon his death in 1889 the volume went to Mrs. Anna R. Harrison of Plymouth, Mass. who has also signed it on the front endpaper, she was listed as one of the 20,000 richest New Englanders in an 1889 publication. Bound in linen cloth stamped in gilt depicting fern, spine lettering and top edge gilt, spine darkened, toning or foxing to boards, no repairs, hinges are fine and tight, rear board has a circular ring, housed within a cloth chemise and leather-backed slipcase. [BAL 5250].