[Provincial American Dust Jacket]. The Cottage Bible and Family Expositor...with practical expositions and explanatory notes by Thomas Williams

Hartford: D.F. Robinson and H.F. Sumner; stereotyped by James Connor and William R. Cooke, 1834. Good. 2 vols. Vol 1: [2], 3-736, [2] = 738 pp., with frontispiece and 7 plates. Vol 2: [2], 737-995, [9], 1003-1440, [3] = 711 pp., with engraved frontispiece and 5 plates. Bound in speckled calf, spines lettered in gilt. Covered with provincial American dust jacket of cloth, with holes cut out to show title and volume number on spine (cloth covers with minor wear along spines, slightly soiled, corners bumped). Marbled textblock edges, age-toned, foxing throughout. Tissue guards heavily foxed as commonly. In both volumes the ownership inscription of Mr. Isaac Humeston dated March 8, 1835. A striking example of a home-made American cloth "dust jacket," the likes of which we have not encountered. The jackets cover two publisher's leather bindings on the 1834 Hartford Cottage Bible which -- on account of the ingenious construction of their coverings -- have never seen any sunlight. We have noted identical bindings on Robinson-Sumner's Cottage Bible (Hartford, 1835), always surviving in poor condition. While our home-made jackets appear to have been crudely made, they were in fact remarkably effective, and have continued to protect our copy brilliantly for nearly two centuries.

Patton's Cottage Bible remains an excellent example of American book arts at this date, as it is enriched with etchings and engravings by American artists F. Kearney, W. Keenan, J.A. Adams, A. Dick, M. Osbourne, James Smillie, and J.B. Longacre. The work seems to have been largely ignored by specialists, no doubt due to the fact that it is almost always found in poor condition.

Provenance: Isaac Humeston (b. 1778 in New Haven, CT - d. 1855 in West Springfield, MA), with records of the Humeston family through 1872 written on the nine pages bound in vol. 2 between the Old and New Testaments.