Search Results: Authors starting with H from 19th Century Rare Book and Photograph Shop

Folio. 400 pp. ruled ledger, perhaps half blank, mainly written on both rectos and versos. Original reversed leather, spine present but detached, else very good condition.
This massive manuscript ledger charts formative years of the show business partnership of George M. Cohan, the "father of American musical comedy," and Sam H. Harris, the famed Broadway producer and theater owner.
Cohan was "the greatest single figure the American theater ever produced – as a player, playwright, actor, composer and producer" (New York Times
obituary). Born in the Lower East Side to poor Jewish parents, Harris was a small-time producer and boxing promoter when he met George M. Cohan. The men hit it off and formed a partnership beginning with Cohan's first full-length musical, Little Johnny Jones (featuring "Give My Regards to Broadway" and "(I'm a) Yankee Doodle Dandy"). Together the two revolutionized Broadway while creating dozens of shows and revues. They are buried side-by-side at Woodlawn… Read More

First edition of the Scarlet Letter. Henry James hailed The Scarlet Letter as "the finest piece of imaginative writing yet put forth in the country … It is beautiful, admirable, extraordinary."
[Tipped in at the front:]
A long reflective letter written by Hawthorne to popular American essayist and novelist Donald Grant Mitchell, best known by his pen name "Ik Marvel." His best-selling Reveries of a Bachelor (1850) was reportedly one of Emily Dickinson's favorite books.
Hawthorne's letter follows a wartime visit to Washington with publisher, friend, and advisor William Ticknor. While there he saw the war first-hand, meeting President Lincoln and visiting the Manassas battlefield. He also posed for portraits, including photographs at Mathew Brady's studio and a painting by Emanuel Leutze.
He tells Mitchell, in part: "I think the enclosed photograph [not present] is the least objectionable of half a dozen from which I selected—all of them being stern, hard, ungenial, and more over, somewhat grayer… Read More

Two volumes. Original brown cloth, spine and baords gilt. Minor wear. An excellent set. Half morocco case.
A lovely copy of the first edition, from the celebrated libraries of Frank Hogan and Marjorie Wiggin Prescott.
Nathaniel Hawthorne and his sister Elizabeth edited this Peter Parley volume for S. G. Goodrich, who had published many of the author's early tales in his literary annual The Token.
The present copy is Clark's second printing, as usual, with volume designations added to the first page of signatures. Uncommon at auction: only three copies of this title are recorded in RBH in the past 30 years, all second printings.

Original green cloth. Minor fading and rubbing. An excellent tight copy. Cloth case.
First edition of Hawthorne's first collection of short stories. This important collection includes eighteen tales published in magazines and annuals and a newspaper—hence "Twice-Told." Many have become key works in the American literary canon, but in 1837, Hawthorne was perhaps still "the obscurest man of letters in America" (Hawthorne Centenary Edition).
Hawthorne's title, Twice-Told Tales, was based on a line from Shakespeare's Life and Death of King John: "Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale, / Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man." The tales are "twice-told" because Hawthorne had published them individually in magazines and annuals before collecting them in this, his first published book. "To this little work we would say, 'Live ever, sweet, sweet book.' It comes from the hand of a man of genius. Everything about it has the freshness of morning and of May … these tales are national in their character …… Read More

Original brown cloth. Fine. Slipcase.
First edition. The fine A. E. Newton copy of Our Old Home, inscribed by Hawthorne on the front endpaper: "Dr Gason 12 via della Mercede." Dr John Gason, Fellow of the College of Physicians in Ireland, is listed at Via della Mercede in various guidebooks from the 1850s-60s. The 1869 Handbook of Rome and its Environs notes that "Dr G, who is also an accoucheur, practices during the summer months at the baths of Lucca." The Hawthornes and Dr Gason were both in Rome in the late 1850s, and possibly had mutual friends from Bagni di Lucca.

Original brown cloth. Some chipping to spine ends and joints. Cloth case.
First edition. A fine presentation copy linking three Bowdoin friends, inscribed by Hawthorne: "For Dr William Mason, with the regards of Nath. Hawthorne."
Pierce, Hawthorne, and Mason had attended Bowdoin College together, with Pierce and Mason in the class of 1824 and Hawthorne in the class of 1825. All three were members of the Democratic Athenaean Society, a literary group chaired by Pierce. In an 1832 letter to Pierce, Hawthorne had reflected: "You cannot imagine how proud I feel, when I recollect that I myself was once in office with you, on the standing committee of the Athenaean Society." Hawthorne also intimated to Pierce—then speaker of the New Hampshire legislature and candidate for Congress—that he might one day become president. In 1852, Hawthorne wrote this presidential campaign biography for his oldest and closest friend.
That same year, Mason, a physician, moved from Bucksport, Maine, to Charleston,… Read More

28pp. Original printed front wrapper, rear wrapper lacking. A little dogeared, some chipping.
Nathaniel Hawthorne's signed copy of this work on Salem's old burying-grounds. The tomb of Nathaniel Mather, memorialized here, was an important inspiration for Hawthorne.
In this book, the antiquarian David Pulsifer recorded the words found on Salem tombstones. Familiar names of old Salem are listed—Corey, Crowninshield, Ingersoll, Pickman, Ropes—as well as several of Hawthorne's own distant ancestors. But of greatest interest is the tombstone for Cotton Mather's younger brother Nathaniel: "Mr. Nathaniel Mather. Dec'd. October ye 17th, 1688." The epitaph, printed on page 18, reads:
An aged personthat had seenbut nineteen wintersin the world.
Hawthorne mentions this very tombstone in Fanshawe, his first novel, when he describes the tombstone of his protagonist: "This [inscription] was borrowed from the grave of Nathanael Mather, whom, in his almost insane eagerness for knowledge and in his early death,… Read More

1 ¼ pp. Tipped into William Lewis Mansfield's Up-Country Letters (New York: Appleton, 1852). 19th-century calf. Spine browned and chipped, some wear.
In this wonderful letter Hawthorne reflects on the reception of American literature in England. The letter is tipped into his friend Mansfield's Up-Country Letters, which he highly recommends to his friend H. A. Bright.
In late 1849, William Lewis Mansfield of Cohoes, New York, sent the manuscript of his poem "The Morning Watch" to Nathaniel Hawthorne for his critique. Hawthorne, then finishing The Scarlet Letter, responded thoughtfully in several letters and accepted much-needed compensation. Mansfield's work was published by George P. Putnam in 1850. Hawthorne declined further money but accepted bottles of champagne. A year later Mansfield sent his epistolary manuscript "Up-Country Letters" to Hawthorne for his judgment. Sophia reported that her husband, who was finishing The House of the Seven Gables, was "much pleased" with his correspondent's new… Read More

Original brown cloth. Some chipping, two gatherings sprung. Morocco case.

John Greenleaf Whittier's copy of the first edition, with his ownership signature and bookplate. A fine association between two important figures in 19th-century American literature. The Quaker poet and abolitionist would later be best-remembered for his 1866 work Snow-Bound.
The present copy also includes a letter from Samuel T. Pickard, Whittier's nephew and eventual executor who was also the publisher of spurious excerpts from Hawthorne's diary in the 1860s.
Provenance: 1. John Greenleaf Whittier, bookplate and signature. 2. Samuel T. Pickard, inscription and accompanying Autograph letter signed to Miss H.D. Richardson. Amesbury, Massachusetts, 1 August 1904. 8 pp letter regarding Whittier's library, family copies, and this copy of Hawthorne's Snow-Image.

First English edition, first printing. A piracy, printed from the Bohn edition plates. Clark, A 17.2a. Octavo (176 x 105mm). Original blue-green cloth, gilt-stamped spine (lightly faded, a few spots).
and
First English edition. Two volumes, octavo (198 x 120mm). Original brown cloth, blind stamped (worn, head and tail caps frayed, slightly leaning, text block somewhat loose in Vol. I). Provenance: Charlotte Sparrow 1786-1876, educational philanthropist residing in the notable Bishton Hall (bookplate and pencil inscription).
Two first English editions. This English edition of The Blithdale Romance is the true first overall, as Ticknor and Fields of Boston paused to allow Chapman and Hall to publish first and therefore protect the English copyright of the novel. The House of the Seven Gables received major critical acclaim in England, with the Athenaeum ranking Hawthorne as one of the most original novelists of modern times following its release (Wineapple, 239). See Brenda Wineapple's Hawthorne: a Life (2004).

Seven parts. Unopened. Title leaf, adverts, and numbers 1-7. Title repaired with tape. Cloth case.
The Zimbalist copy of The Weal Reaf, printing "Letter from Hawthorne" for the first time, from the 1860 Essex Institute Fair at Salem. "Letter from Hawthorne" appears in nos. 2 & 3 (5 & 6 September 1860). Framed as a letter to "My Dear Cousin" who has requested a story, he explains that since writing Twice-Told Tales and Mosses from an Old Manse, "my mind seems to lost the plan and measure of those little narratives, in which it was once so unprofitably fertile. I can write no story, therefore; but (rather than be entirely wanting to the occasion,) I will endeavor to describe a spot near Salem, on which it was once my purpose to locate such a dream fiction as you now demand of me." He goes on to describe "that conspicuous hill" which once known by Browne's Folly and a nearby mansion with a haunted closet. He recounts the tale of schoolboys who succeeded in opening its door one day: "As it flew open,… Read More

Six volumes. Original embossed leather bindings. Some wear and foxing, but generally very good.
The Token was the longest-lived and greatest of the American literary annuals of the 1830s and 1840s. Publishers solicited stories and poems by the leading American authors and packaged them in fine bindings and engravings for the holiday market. Hawthone was among the most prolific contributors. These six volumes contains a total of 31 Hawthorne contributions as follows: 1831 (4 by Hawthorne), 1832 (6), 1833 (5), 1836 (3), 1837 (8), and 1838 (5).
Other contributors include Oliver Wendell Holmes, Lydia H. Sigourney, Hannah Gould,Catharine Maria Sedgwick, Sarah J. Hale, and Sarah Helen Whitman.

Frontispiece illustration by Sophia Amelia Peabody (lower corner of final leaf restored, a few small repairs at margins elsewhere). Original printed wrappers. Spine restored, a few repaired tears to rear cover, light soiling and wear at extremities. Morocco case.
First separate edition. This is the Chrysler copy in original wrappers. "The Gentle Boy" is a moving tale of the Puritan persecution of the Quakers. The work was inspired by William Sewel's History of the Quakers and informed by the experience of Hawthorne's own ancestor William Hathorne. This first separate edition includes the engraving of Sophia's of the Gentle Boy with the Puritan.
The present copy has Clark's second state of the text with "faces" at 18-1.9, and the third state of frontispiece with artist's initials and date 1/16" high.

In a run of the Gazette spanning January to December 1825. Folio. Blue paper boards. Very good.
A black tulip of American literature collecting, this 16-line poem is the earliest located appearance of any of Hawthorne's work.
"Material by Hawthorne, presumably verse, appeared in newspapers as early as 1819 according to a reference in a letter to his sister Maria Louisa dated Salem, Tuesday, 28 September 1819: 'Tell Ebe [sister Elizabeth] she's not the only one of the family whose works have appeared in the papers.' The work Hawthorne refers to has not been located" (Clark).
This copy is from the collection of Hawthorne's foremost bibliographer, C. E. Frazer Clark, Jr. According to Clark, the last copy to be sold at auction was the Stephen Wakeman copy in 1924.
Clark, Nathaniel Hawthorne: A Descriptive Bibliography D1

32mo. Original green cloth, black paper label lettered in gold. Small hole at spine, label rubbed, front hinge cracked but holding. Half morocco case.
First edition. A rare presentation copy inscribed by Hawthorne to his uncle on the title-page: "To John Dike with the author's remembrance" and additionally signed by Hawthorne at the end of the preface.
The narrator of Hawthorne's Liberty Tree is Grandfather, who regales the listening children with historical tales, assisted by the prop of an old chair that, he imagines, once held a variety of great figures. Grandfather speaks proudly of the American Revolution—"The world has seen no grander movement that that of our Revolution, from first to last"—and focuses on events of the Revolution in and near Boston, including the Stamp Act, the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, and the coming of General George Washington.
This book was published by Hawthorne's future sister-in-law, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody. Hawthorne was close to the recipient of this… Read More

Original printed wrappers. Resewn, lightly worn. Fine. Red morocco pull-off case.
First edition. One of the most famous Hawthorne rarities, The Celestial Rail-Road was pirated from the May 1843 Democratic Review to Hawthorne's chagrin. This copy bears the James F. Fish imprint. Other copies bear the Wilder & Co. imprint, which Clark suggests appeared first. BAL does not assign priority. Wakeman catalogue notes that "both issues are excessively rare, and particularly so in immaculate condition, as are the present copies [Wakeman had an example of each imprint]." Carroll Wilson notes that "the Fish imprint is rare rarer."
Written in 1843 when the railroad linked the reflective solitude of Concord and the frenzied commerce of Boston, The Celestial Railroad examines the parallels between timesaving modern industry and the search for a time-saving route to salvation. This satirical allegory was inspired by Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. "The Celestial Railroad … is the finest tribute ever paid to Bunyan's… Read More

First American edition, first printing of Hawthorne's final children's book. A spectacular American literary presentation copy inscribed by Nathaniel Hawthorne to Oliver Wendell Holmes: "O.W. Holmes from his friend N.H."
Holmes wrote about Tanglewood Tales with great enthusiasm in a letter to its publisher, James T. Fields: "Hawthorne's book has been not devoured, but bolted by my children. I have not yet had a chance at it, but I don't doubt I shall read it with as much gusto as they, when my turn comes. When you write to him, thank him if you please for me, for I suppose he will hardly expect any formal acknowledgment" (September 6, 1853).
The two were friends for many years. Holmes served as Hawthorne's pallbearer in May 1864. The next month he wrote in The Atlantic, "Our literature could ill spare the rich ripe autumn of such a life as Hawthorne's, but he has left enough to keep his name in remembrance as long as the language in which he shaped his deep imaginations is spoken by human lips."… Read More

12 volumes. Original wrappers. Some wear, two covers detached. A good set, rare in wrappers. Cloth case.
This set of the Democratic Review in original wrappers cotnaisn the first printings of five Hawthorne stories: "The Celestial Railroad," "The New Adam and Eve,: "Egotism; or, The Bosom Serpent, from the Unpublished 'Allegories of the Heart,'" "The Procession of Life," and "Buds and Bird-Voices." These issues of the influential Democratic Review also publish works by Lowell, Whittier, Bryant, Thoreau, and others.

Original quarter morocco over yellow boards, spine gilt, all edges gilt. Rubbed.
The first printing of Hawthorne's "Little Annie's Ramble," Hawthorne's fable of childhood innocence. After the main character's "ramble" through town with young Annie, he reflects: "Sweet has been the charm of childhood on my spirit, throughout my ramble with Little Annie! Say not that it has been a waste of precious moments, an idle manner, a babble of childish talk, and a reverie of childish imaginations, about topics unworthy of a grown man's notice. Has it been merely this? Not so; not so. … As the pure breath of children revives the life of aged men, so is our moral nature revived by their free and simple thoughts, their native feeling, their airy mirth, for little cause or none, their grief, soon roused and soon allayed. Their influence on us is at least reciprocal with ours on them." The story is unsigned in the present volume, credited only to "The Author of 'The Gentle Boy.'"

Three joined sheets. 21 x 66 in. Copper engraved map, three joined sheets, fine, vivid original hand coloring. Title in Latin and German on left sheet. Old creases, several small repairs on verso. Very good condition.
This famous three-sheet plan of London, Westminster, and Southwark gives names of streets, drainage, parish boundaries, buildings, parks and other places. The right sheet has inset views of St. Paul's Cathedral, St. James Square, Custom House and the Royal Exchange on right sheet.
This spectacular plan of London is eminently suited for framing and display.