Search Results: Americana from Riverrun Books & Manuscripts

1962. In fine condition. 3.5 x 6.25 inches. Postcard celebrating the 50th anniversary of New Mexico's statehood.

London: J. Robinson, 1744. Marginal stain on R3, generally a fine copy. 4to (278 x 215 mm). Large engraved folding map "New Map of Part of North America" (some minor offsetting). 20th-century brown half morocco, marbled boards, top edges gilt. Provenance: Edward Everett Ayer, presented to the Newberry Library (bookplate, with Newberry removal label). First edition of this important - and scarce - work advocating continued search for a Northwest Passage. "Even if Dobbs used exaggeration as his main literary device, the core of his sermon was perfectly accurate -- that if the Company did not drastically alter its tactics, the French would occupy the new continent's central plains... Its most valuable historical contribution was the description of the extraordinary exploits of a 'French Canadese Indian' named Joseph La France" (Peter C. Newman, Empire of the Sun, 2000, p. 213). Dobbs attacked the Hudson's Bay Company, claiming that their mismanagement of Indian trade had ceded the fur trade to the… Read More

Boulder, CO: Johnson Publishing Company, 1966. 4to. 188 pp. Original cloth; glassine. A fine copy. FIRST EDITION, number 355 of 400 copies signed. Wynar 9140.

Boulder, CO: Johnson Publishing Company, 1961. 8vo. 78 pp. Frontispiece, map. Original cloth-backed decorated paper boards, printed paper label on front cover. A near-fine copy, the spine slightly sunned. FIRST EDITION, one of 350 copies. Wynar 8417.

Denver: Smith-Brooks Printing Co. for Thomas Tonge, 1913. 8vo. 112 pp. Profusely illustrated, including a map. Original cloth-backed pictorial boards. A near-fine copy. FIRST EDITION. A detailed guide to Colorado, its natural resources, geography, ecology, economy, agriculture, etc. Wynar 2155.

Mexico: Fidencio S. Soria, nd. Large folding plates are torn at the attachment, else a very good copy; light wear to binding. 4to. 30 pages. 63 plates, with two large folding plates. Brown cloth, original printed wrappers bound in.

Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1863. Text block broken, chip at head of spine, frontispiece and title reinforced along gutter, some intermittent spotting. 8vo (23 x 15 cm). 671 pages. Engraved portrait frontispiece of William Rosencrans, engraved title, and engraved plates. Presentation binding of brown hard-grained morocco, with gilt-lettered presentation on front cover: "Lt. Col. J. W. Taylor, with the Compliments of the Author," all edges gilt. FIRST EDITION. A fine association copy: J. W. Taylor was on Rosencrans's staff and is discussed on p. 271 (and elsewhere). The Army of the Cumberland was under the command of William Rosencrans.

Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office, 1967. Ex-library copy, with inkstamps on title and at intervals in the margins of the text. Front joint split but holding, wear to binding, occasional pale foxing. Thick 4to (28.5 x 22 cm). Engraved frontispiece portait of Lincoln. xxx, 930 pages. Original dark-green half morocco, crimson cloth boards, spine gilt, marbled edges. FIRST EDITION, with inserterd engraved leaf dated 2 March 1867 at front printing the resolution by the Senate and House of Representatives to print this book and distribute one copy to each Senator and Representative of the Thirty-ninth Congress, and to each Foreign Government, and one copy to each Corporation, Association, or public body whose expressions of condolence or sympathy are published in the volume. One hundred copies were bound in full morocco, and the remaining copies were ound in half morocco, as on this copy.

From the Bart Auerbach Collection. Trace of mounting on verso. One page, 12mo. Tourgée was a carpet-bagger judge and a best-selling author of sensational political novels, including 'A Fool's Errand'. Here (in about 155 words) he writes a playful response to a girl's request for an autograph: "My publisher handed me your request for an autograph which I send only wishing it were a nicer one for your sake. I would send a kiss too only I can't find out what the postage on the article is..." (BA) Tourgée was an early civil rights activist; he founded the National Citizens' Rights Association, and founded Bennett College as a normal school for freedmen in North Carolina.

One page, 4to. Jared Sparks: historian, editor, and clergyman. One of the leading mid-nineteenth-century American historians that included George Bancroft and William Prescott. McLean Professor of Ancient and Modern History at Harvard College, and named president of the college in 1849. Reading: "Dear Parsons, I have lately received a letter from Taylor, from which the following is an extract.' Please say to our classmate, T. Parsons, Esq. that I did not receive his letter in reason for its object, or it should have been acknowledged." Thus, I discharge the important trust of communicating the message, and am most truly yours, Jared Sparks.

One and a quarter pages, 4to. The Massachusetts jurist and congressman writes to Parsons: "Dear Sir: Your favor of the 31st ultimo came duly to hand. It would afford me great pleasure to be able to render any essential aid in the preparation of a biography of Chief Justice Parsons. But I was not personally acquainted with him till he made his appearance at Portland as Chief Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court, in 1807. I had, however, heard of him, from an early period of my life, as the "giant of the law" IN Massachusetts. He was at the head of his profession, I believe, quite soon after he became a member of it, and so continued until the day of his decease. I know but little of him, except as Chief Justice, presiding at the law terms in the County of Cumberland. I think he never held a nisi prius term there. As chief Justice he was perfectly at his ease, for he was not unconscious of his superior acquirements, not of the deference every one was ready to pay to them. He was uniformly pleasant,… Read More

Two pages, with integral address panel, 4to. Henry van Schaak (1733-1825): banished from New York State during the American Revolution because of his Loyalist sympathies. He moved to Massachusetts, first settling in Richmond and then in Pittsfield. He was a close friend and correspondent of Philip Schuyler, James Duane, and several other New Yorkers. Reading: "Our friend the Doctor your colleague, how is he? I hope the house will have a full display of his political talents in this important crisis. My affectionate compl. To him. Good night God bless you all and believe me unfeignedly My dear sir Your sincere and obt. Servant H V Schaack." I hope you will be early in the house so as to secure a good seat - Let me beseech you to keep that inanimate (?) thing of a man who used to squeeze us so hard, at distance! I wo'd as soon sit near a Toad as that lump of stupidity. You know who I mean. I had rather be near a Knave than a fool - the former may divert me but the latter can pay no tribute of amusement -

Two and a half pages, 4to. John Luzac (1746-1807): Dutch lawyer, journalist and professor in Greek and History, of Huguenot origin. He was the most influential newspaper editor in the Western world in the years immediately preceding the French Revolution. The Dutch scholar-lawyer tells Parsons that he has been employed to "execute the commission of books." He tells of his search for books throughout his career, and mentions meeting John Adams while on the courts at the Hague and at Leiden.

One and a quarter pages, 4to. Reading: "My Dear Sir As the Court is not likely to have a long session, I must pray you to hasten on yr argument, in the Case of Peters v Warren In ? Co. Are you ever to be done with the License lease, 15 Galton law? Really, I am mortified at the ? ee ridicule, east upon good old Commonwealth, both by friend and foe, in consequence of what has happened, and is happening, to her, from that source. How can any sane man the continuance of the obnoxious law? For my part, I have always thought it indefensible in principle, &, in its operation most mischievous to the cause, which it was expected to promote. Pray do beseech our friends to have some little regard to what every body is saying about us. Yours, always, with most sincere esteem Danl Webster

1865. Some light soiling, one small hole in blank lower margin. Oblong 8vo (5 x 8.25 inches), on yellow paper tipped at upper corners to old mount. An amusing rhymed note from the poet John Pierpont (1785-1866), the maternal grandfather of the financier J. Pierpont Morgan: "You ask for my name 'written under a note' But I'm sure you don't mean 'note of hand'; For, as such, 'twere as worthless as you ever wrote, Just a-head of the surf, in the sand." An amusing note for the grandfather of a banker!

From the Bart Auerbach Collection. Usual folds, but fine. One page, 8vo. The author, best known for 'Two Years Before the Mast', comments on the "air pipe" he has purchased and orders a drum. (BA).

3 1/4 pages, 8vo, a bifolium on pale bluish-green paper. Evidence of folds, a marginal tear not affecting text, scant remains of former mounting on last page. The American antiquarian and historian Samuel G. Drake (1798-1875) writes to William Elliot Woodward (1825-1892), the numismatist, New England genealogist, and publisher, about the life of Samuel G. Bishop. Drake opened one of the first antiquarian bookstores established in the United States and was one of the founders, in 1847, of the New England Historic Genealogical Society. Woodward reprinted an edition of Bishop's Eulogium on the Death of George Washington in the year of this letter's writing, presumably the prompt for requesting biographical details from Drake. Reading: Boston, 8 June 1866 Agreeably to your request, in conformity to my promise, I have undertaken this letter to give you some facts in the life of Samuel G. Bishop, the author among some of fugitive work, of an Eulogy of Gen. Washington [Gilmanton, NH: E. Russell for the… Read More

New York: James Miller, 1863. One leaf loose, wear to binding at extremities, some scattered foxing. 8vo. Original green cloth. Fourth edition, revised and enlarged. Provenance: Edgar Conkling (1812-1881), financier from Cincinnati, presentation inscription on front free endpaper to "His Namesake C. Edgar Kinne of Ovid, Seneca Co. New York. May 8 1863. Remember that Abraham Lincoln was once a poor boy, yet became President. That most of our great men became so by 'eternal vigilance,' by system, by diercedness of purpose, anchored in God. The *boy* must decide what the *Man* may be. Religiously - morally - intellectually. E. C." With engraved portrait on pastedown.

Brooklyn: Grant Brower, 1894. Folio (12 x 9 inches). 24 pp. Musical notation. Original printed wrappers. Somewhat age-darkened, a few chips at edges of wrappers. Revised edition, after the first of 1891. Exercises, scale studies, arpeggios or harp chords, harmonics, slides, double fingering, velocity studies, barre, a duet for two banjos, ending with Brower's composition "Kingston Galop." Scarce. Not in OCLC.

Toronto: The Champlain Society in Cooperation with the Ontario Heritage Foundation, 1987. A fine copy. 8vo. Plates. Original red cloth, gilt-lettered on spine. One of 1300 copies of volume XIII of the Ontario Series from the Publications of The Champlain Society.