Search Results: Thirty Years Since by G P R James

Collection of 255 letters, 776 manuscript pp., (164 retained mailing envelopes), dated 1 April 1879 to 19 April 1918; the bulk of correspondence dates from the 1880s and 1890s; mostly handwritten, some typed; includes correspondence of Barrett family members of Hartford, Connecticut, to their son, Charles C. Barrett, as well as incoming business letters to Barrett, who worked for the Missouri Pacific Railroad as a traveling passenger agent, and later became a land developer and realtor at Edgar, Wisconsin; the archive also includes 1 diary of 1873-1874 kept by William J. Barrett; 12 small memorandum notebooks, dated 1884-1913; and over 340 pieces of related paper and manuscript ephemeral material.
There are several sections, or groups of letters, within the collection. Including a section containing family letters written by Mrs. Jane Barrett to her son Charles C. Barrett, as well as letters to Charles from his sister Grace and, his brother, Cliff; there are letters written to Barrett's wife Clara… Read More

London: Printed by the Assigns of J. Bill and Chr. Barker..., 1674. Thick 24mo, 113 x 58 x 48, unpaginated, collating [pi] A12 - 3D12, with engraved portrait of Charles II, engraved title-page and engraved "History of the Old and New Testament in Cutts," separate title-page for the New Testament, dated 1673, with 105 engraved leaves, 16 of which have only a single figure, while the remainder have two images on each leaf (engravings not included in collation. BOUND WITH: The Whole Book of Psalms.... London: Printed for the Company of Stationers, 1672., 12mo, unpaginated, collating A12 - D12. 2 volumes bound in 1 in the style of Queen's Binder "B," in dark red morocco, with scrolls, flourishes, and floral decorations, both on covers ad spine; one plate defective and crudely repaired, second engraved title-page almost detached at inner margin and one leaf of plates is detached at inner margin, two leaves stained, lacks clasps, but a rather good copy of this uncommon edition… Read More

(Virginia; South Carolina; Florida), 1862. Very Good. A fascinating and detailed correspondence written by James A. Litchfield to a personal friend in Boston and to his parents and sisters in their hometown of Lunenburg, Massachusetts, together with Litchfield's two wartime diaries from 1863-64. Litchfield served in Company F of the 40th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, enlisting as a Private in August, 1862, promoted to 1st Sergeant in September, and mustering out as 1st Lieutenant in command of the Company. During his service Litchfield participated in several major battles and campaigns, including the siege of Fort Sumter and fall of Fort Wagner in Charleston harbor; the Battle of Olustee near Jacksonville, Florida; the horrific Battle of the Crater during the siege of Petersburg; and in numerous skirmishes throughout Virginia during the Richmond-Petersburg Campaign. Here, for example, is but one of his many vivid descriptions of being under bombardment, or caught up in the thick of battle:… Read More

Halleck (1790-1867) was one of the most popular American poets in the first half of the 19th century and the only American to be honored with a statue in Poet's Row in Central Park. Recent scholarship has contextualized Halleck as an early gay American poet, whose relationship with fellow poet and collaborator Joseph Rodman Drake formed the basis for Bayard Taylor's 1870 novel Joseph and his Friend cited by some as the first gay American novel. (See Hallock, The American Byron: Homosexuality and the Fall of Fitz-Greene Halleck, University of Wisconsin Press, 2000.) Born in Guilford, Connecticut, Halleck moved to New York in 1811, and in 1813 formed an intimate relationship with Drake. In 1819 the men became literary stars when they published "The Croakers," a series of poems satirizing prominent New Yorkers; Halleck followed this up in 1819 with Fanny, a poem satirizing New York's nouveaux riches which went through several life-time editions; Alnwick Castle and other poems appeared in 1827, featuring… Read More

Zürich: Jacob Gesner, 1566. THE FIRST ILLUSTRATED BOOK ON FOSSILS. First edition and a fine copy in contemporary binding, very rare when complete, of this collection of eight treatises, the most important being De rerum fossilium [On fossil Objects], Gesner's last work, the earliest scientific attempt to classify the mineral kingdom, and the first illustrated book on fossils. "It presents a picture of the mineral kingdom as seen through the eyes of the greatest naturalist of his time" (Adams). Gesner's work contains numerous woodcuts after his own drawings, many of which are still preserved in Basel University Library. Gesner's book also famously contains the first printed illustration of a lead pencil (f. 104v). The other seven other works, by six authors, in this composite volume were all edited by Gesner. They include the first appearance of a catalogue of a mineral collection, that of Johannes Kentmann, "stated to have been the first man in Europe to make a collection of minerals." His catalogue… Read More