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

First edition of "the most distinguished atlas published in the United States during the engraving period" (Ristow). Tanner's greatest work, A New American Atlas was painstakingly produced and issued in installments between 1818 and 1823. Few complete sets have survived. Tanner's use of a uniform scale of 15 geographical miles to the inch and his careful selection of sources resulted in a comprehensive American atlas of unprecedented detail and reliability which was the standard by which American atlases were measured until the modern era. This was by a considerable margin the greatest American atlas up to its time.
The spectacular folding map of North America is a high point of American cartography. "The map was a landmark – a great cartographic achievement … [and] was the progenitor of a long line of famous maps" (Wheat). This tremendous map, measuring 58 x 45 inches, reflects the extent of the Lewis and Clark discoveries and presents findings of the expeditions of Pike, James, and the other… Read More

4to (9 x 7 in.). 420 pp. (wove paper with watermark "Smith & Allnut 1825), including index of watercolors, some leaves blank. 79 original watercolor and ink studies of flowers (45 full-page), 2 uncolored ink studies. 2 manuscript poems ("Sleeper" and "The Drowning Fly") by William Tennent loosely inserted. Contemporary red morocco gilt extra, spine lettered "Poetry of Flowers. By Lady E. Tennent." Very fine condition.
This splendid album of botanical watercolors and the "poetry of flowers," the product of years of reading, writing, and painting, was created by Lady Laetitia Emerson Tennent. She collected several hundred poems and lines of verse concerning flowers and the language of flowers written by poets from Shakespeare and Spenser to Wordsworth and other Romantics, the famous and the obscure.
Lady Tennent illustrated the album with finely executed ink and watercolor studies of flowers, typically placed with thematically related verse. The result is a gorgeous, elegant, and tasteful… Read More

12mo. Original brown cloth blocked in black and gilt. All edges gilt. Tenth edition stated on title. Very fine condition. Thaxter has mounted a CDV portrait of herself in the front. Half morocco case.
Presentation copy inscribed by the author and artist Celia Thaxter: "Mary Mapes Dodge with much love. Illustrated by Celia Thaxter 1882." Dodge is best known as the author of Hans Brinker or the Silver Skates and as a founding editor of St. Nicholas Magazine. Thaxter provided a poem for the first issue of that children's magazine and helped to promote it.
A perfect gem of a book illustrated throughout with 33 fine watercolors by Thaxter.
They include delicate flowers, spiders, butterflies, feathers, plants, seaweed, landscapes and seascapes, some in the margins and others superimposed upon the text. The colors are rich and fresh, and the pictures are exquisite and detailed.
Thaxter was a beloved New England artist and poet whose work was first published in the Atlantic Monthly. Thaxter became… Read More

This remarkable photograph shows "one of twelve white elephants belonging to King Mongkut. The 'white' elephants are really reddish-brown with pale eyelashes and toenails. Male white elephants were regarded with high esteem and were adorned with elaborate costumes. The photograph shows the mahout, wearing a distinctive conical hat, training the elephant to kneel; he is using an elephant control stick with a hook (an ankusa). A boy stands by the head of the elephant, several other elephant carers sit on the right with ropes and a parasol, and a large group of onlookers sit on the left. The walls of the Grand Palace are seen behind" (Wellcome Institute Library).
Thomson recalled of the white elephants, "We passed a place called Bang-Sang, where a royal palace had been erected for the reception of a scared white elephant, which died, it was reported, of a champagne dinner, on its progress to the capital. The untimely end of this brute was esteemed a national calamity, and was a cause of deep… Read More

Carbon print, mounted. 9 3/8 x 12 in. Marginal stain far from image. A brilliant print with deep contrast.
This is a magnificent photograph from John Thomson's legendary Foochow and the River Min. Thomson is the greatest single figure in nineteenth-century photography in China.
The Scottish photographer spent four years photographing the people and places of China beginning in 1868. "By the time his travels brought him to the thriving city of Fuzhou, a little way up the River Min from the south China coast, John Thomson had developed and tuned his photographic aesthetic to respond to the magnificence of the landscape more acutely. … The attitude of reverence and contemplation which man should properly direct towards the great waterways of nature, whilst forming a central part of the Chinese landscape aesthetic, seems to have interlocked with Thomson's own response" (Ovenden, John Thomson Photographer).
On his return to England in 1872, Thomson produced the magnificent Foochow and the River… Read More

An important early offering brochure regarding the sale of the first modern compass and early navigational aids. This is a price list and an extensive collection of reports and testimonial letters from ship captains concerning Thomson's sounding apparatus (the first to use wire instead of hemp) and compass.
"The modern compass dates from 1876, when Sir William Thomson patented his dry-card compass" (Singer, History of Technology
V). Thomson was deeply interested in the application of science to industry, and he apparently prepared this rare, ephemeral publication to promote his products, which helped to make him a wealthy man.
This brochure includes a detailed price list for Thomson's navigational instruments.19 leaves, printed rectos only, stapled as issued. Some soiling. Very good.

This splendid photograph shows costumed dancers and musicians posed in the middle of a performance. The hands of the two dancers at the center are about to meet in a clap, and the drummer raises a stick to strike his drum. A thatched roof building and palms are in the background.
"A troupe of twenty-six dancers and musicians, some with elaborate costumes and masks: fifteen are girls, seven boys, and four men. In the background is a traditional bamboo house with a pandanus thatched roof together with sugar cane and banana trees. Fifteen of those present are lakhon performers. Eleven of them are on the left (one standing resting a sword on her shoulder, four seated along an rattan chair, and six kneeling behind the musicians), two sit on the floor in the centre, and two on the seat on the right. The six khon performers perform a scene from the Ramakien, derived from the Ramayana. They include (centre) a yaksha (giant) fighting with Phra Ram; to the right of them, two other yakshas; seated… Read More

This is one of the greatest early photographs by John Thomson, "a towering figure in nineteenth-century photography"
(Bennett). In 1865, having read of the discovery of Angkor in Cambodia, Thomson sailed to Bangkok to obtain the permission of King Mongkut of Siam to travel into Cambodia's interior. While in Bangkok, Thomson made photographs of the king, his court, and his magnificent royal barge.
This is a magnificent two-panel view of the king's barge on the water, with dozens of oarsmen ready to put their paddles in to the water. The king's ornate covered throne is at the rear of the vessel. The riverbank in the background is crowded with low thatched roof buildings.
Thomson recalled, "It is the annual custom of the King, in the month of November, to visit certain royal temples, and to make offerings to their priests. On these occasions the monarch may be seen arrayed in all the splendour of his jeweled robes, enthroned in his state barge, and paddled about by a hundred men. Behind him… Read More

Three volumes. Folding map in each volume. Return of the King is second state with sig. 4 and slipped type on p. 49 (this was formerly Hammond's first state, but the bibliographer has revised his opinion). Original red cloth and printed dust jackets. Show-through staining from old removed tape repairs to jackets of vols. 1-2, some wear, spines tanned. A good set.
FIRST EDITIONS, FIRST PRINTINGS. This is a very attractive set of the celebrated Lord of the Rings trilogy. The size of the edition was small: The Fellowship of the Ring (3000 copies), The Two Towers (3250 copies), and The Return of the King (7000 copies).
WITH AN INSCRIPTION BY TOLKIEN. Mounted at the front of the first volume is a small leaf inscribed by Tolkien: "For Mr Hal Coomer in memory of a pleasant meeting & suffering shared, on Whitsunday, 1958. J. R. R. Tolkien."
The two had appeared together on a radio program. The set is accompanied by a letter dated 3 June 1958 from Tolkien's publisher George Allen & Unwin. In this letter to… Read More

Three volumes. Folding map in each volume. Return of the King is second state with sig. 4 and slipped type on p. 49 (this was formerly Hammond's first state, but the bibliographer has revised his opinion). Original red cloth and printed dust jackets. Show-through staining from old removed tape repairs to jackets of vols. 1-2, some wear, spines tanned. A good set.
FIRST EDITIONS, FIRST PRINTINGS. This is a very attractive set of the celebrated Lord of the Rings trilogy. The size of the edition was small: The Fellowship of the Ring (3000 copies), The Two Towers (3250 copies), and The Return of the King (7000 copies).
WITH AN INSCRIPTION BY TOLKIEN. Mounted at the front of the first volume is a small leaf inscribed by Tolkien: "For Mr Hal Coomer in memory of a pleasant meeting & suffering shared, on Whitsunday, 1958. J. R. R. Tolkien."
The two had appeared together on a radio program. The set is accompanied by a letter dated 3 June 1958 from Tolkien's publisher George Allen & Unwin. In this letter to… Read More

Three volumes. Folio. Generally in very good condition (details below).
Three rare Treasury reports as follows:
1. An Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of the United States, commencing with the establishment of the Treasury Department . . . ending on the thirty-first Day of December One Thousand Seven Hundred and Ninety-one. Philadelphia: Childs and Swaine, 1793. Folio, 61 pp., folding table. Removed. Very good.
FIRST EDITION. This is a highly detailed report of the federal government's receipts and expenditures during the crucial first two years of the new government, 1790-91. Locations: AAS, Library Company, Brown, Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. Evans 26341.
2. The Treasurer of the United States' Accounts of Payments and Receipts of Public Monies from 1st October, 1790, to 30th June, 1791. [Philadelphia:] Childs and Swaine, [1791]. Folio. Original front wrapper. First few leaves stained. 52 pp.
FIRST EDITION. Samuel Meredith was first Treasurer of the United States. This is a… Read More

7 engraved plates, some folding. Contemporary calf, morocco labels. Very good.
The edition that Thomas Jefferson owned. Jefferson wrote from Monticello in 1817, "While I was an amateur in Agricultural science (for practical knowledge my course of life never permitted me) I was very partial to the drilled husbandry of Tull."
Jethro Tull's invention of the seed-drill helped bring about a revolution in agriculture. "By contour ploughing, drilling his seed at wide intervals, and using his horse-hoe to destroy weeds, Tull was able to grow wheat on the same fields for thirteen years continuously without manuring" (ODNB). "The practices of drill-sowing and frequent hoeing are the greatest improvements which have been introduced into the modern practice of tillage" (McDonald).
Sowerby, The Library of Thomas Jefferson 701. Printing and the Mind of Man 188 (first edition of 1731).

Broadside. 3 3/4 x 8 1/4 in. Near fine.
First and only edition. This document provides guidance for forming local Mark Twain clubs from the Mark Twain Society, founded by Cyril Clemens in 1930.
Scarce: WorldCat locates only the copy at University of Virginia.

Original half dark brown morocco gilt. Portrait frontispiece with sculptor's name on the shoulder, State 3 of title but no priority acknowledged, State 1 of p. [13], p. 57 and p. 155, without 11 signature on p. 161, and the original first state of the illustration on p. 283. Light wear. Near fine.

First American edition, in publisher's morocco with the rare first state of the illustration on p. 283.
While gathering advance subscriptions to Huckleberry Finn, traveling salesmen offered not only copies in cloth bindings but also deluxe leather bound copies such as the present example. The first copies printed were sent off to be put in those time-consuming bindings.
Soon thereafter, as printing progressed, an unknown individual defaced the plate on p. 283 with an engraving of a penis at Uncle Silas's crotch. Thousands of copies were printed before the altered plate was discovered. Each of those offending leaves was cut out and replaced with leaf featuring the re-engraved illustration. This new… Read More

Original red cloth. Two gatherings a little loose. Minor wear. A very good copy. Half morocco case.
First edition of the iconic American "Boy's Book." Twain's first novel written without a co-author, Tom Sawyer "proved to be one of the most durable works in American literature. By the time of Twain's death, it was his top-selling book. It had been in print continuously since 1876, and has outsold all other Mark Twain works" (Rasmussen).
"Tom Sawyer was the first printed story of a boy in which the hero was recognizable as a boy throughout the whole narrative … until Tom Sawyer was written, nearly all the boys of fiction were adults with a lisp, or saintly infants, or mischievous eccentrics … in the work of Dickens there were hints of boys that were boys; but Tom was the first full blown boy in all fiction … the book is a landmark" (Booth Tarkington).
This novel of a boy growing up along the Mississippi River is set in a town called St. Petersburg, inspired by Samuel Clemens's hometown of… Read More