Joyce, James and Henri Matisse. Ulysses. New York: The Limited Editions Club, 1935.

With six original soft-ground etchings by Henri Matisse and twenty reproductions of

preliminary drawings by Matisse. Number 678 of 1500 numbered copies and oneof only 250 copies by both Joyce and Matisse. Joyce was initially pleased that an artist of Matisse’s stature was to illustrate Ulysses. But after some consideration, Joyce was worried that the Frenchman might not be familiar enough with the Irish terrain to do the job. He attempted to have a friend in Ireland send the artist an illustrated weekly from Dublin around 1904. When he discovered that Matisse had not even read the book, but instead depicted six episodes from Homer’s Odyssey, Joyce flew into a rage and refused to sign any more copies. Original gilt-pictorial brown cloth, cover image bright. Some very light rubbing but otherwise a bright and clean copy. The slipcase is clean with some very minor paper loss on the bottom folds. $23,500.

Percy, Walker. The Moviegoer. New York: Knopf, 1961.

First edition of the author’s first book, and arguably his best. Inscribed, “For Doug —- with thanks & best wishes Walker Percy June 16, 1988.” Winner of the National Book Award. The book is fine, in a dust jacket with some minor wear on spine ends and corners and a small closed tear, still nice for this black jacket, which never seems to hold up well.

$9,500

image Van Allsburg Original Cover.jpg

Van Allsburg, Chris. Original graphite illustration done for the Steven Spielberg, 1985 television series Amazing Stories. It was done for season one and the episode/story was entitled Ghost Train. The image is 17 by 12.25 inches and is signed in full. This is a marvelous image that was done relatively early in Van Allsburg’s career and combined with Amazing Stories by Spielberg makes quite a combination. $22,500

image royal-guthrie.jpg

Guthrie, Woody. Lengthy Autograph Letter Signed. 1946.

Executed in black marker on a long piece of paper, measuring 14 x 8.75 inches. In the letter, Woody holds forth in great detail regarding a new Stella Brooks record, giving his opinions, mostly quite favorable and all very detailed, about each track on the album. Many lyrical sentiments about the songs are present, such as “it’s on the ground and it’s in the groove,” “she’s goin’ down to the West End to lose her West End blues, and it makes me want to jump up and go with her,” and “she talks it, she weeps it, she hollers it, she preaches it, she feels it, she knows it.” A superb Woody Guthrie document, written at the age of 34, one of the few that are not already in library holdings such as the Guthrie archive at the Smithsonian. $18,500

[Classic German Printing Manual] Ernesti, Johann Heinrich Gottfried. Die wol-eingerichtete Buchdruckerey, mit hundert und achtzehen Teutsch-Lateinisch-Griechisch- und Hebräischen Schrifften, vieler fremden Sprachen Alphabeten, musicalischen Noten, Calender-Zeichen und Medicinischen Characteren, ingleichen allen üblichen Formaten bestellet, und mit accurater Abbildung der Erfinder der löblichen Kunst, nebst einer summarischen Nachricht von den Buchdruckern in Nürnberg, ausgezieret. Am Ende ist das gebräuchliche Depositions-büchlein angefüget.

Nürnberg, gedruckt und zu finden bey Johann Andreä Endters seel. Sohn und Erben, 1721.$6,800

Oblong 4to, pp. [58] including engraved frontispiece and title page printed in red and black, 140, [2], 24; numerous tables and figures and thirteen engraved printers’ portraits in the text; G4 music type face entirely engraved; bound with the unsigned leaf of correction marks (in red and black) which is often missing; bound in contemporary full vellum, with the arms of the monastery Stift Lambach to upper and lower board; gilt-lettered spine label; a very attractive copy, from the collection of the German publisher Karl Thiemig with printed bookplate to front paste-down.

First edition, rare, of this classic German printers’ manual. The charming engraved frontispiece shows the interior of the print shop, with two presses and nine people actively involved in type-setting, inking, proof-reading, and printing. The two presses bear dates—one 1440 for the beginning of printing, the other 1721, the date of this first edition of this printer’s manual. Ernesti begins with a brief history of printing, and includes concise biographies of the main early printers, such as Gutenberg, Fust, Aldus, Froben, and Plantin, with their engraved portraits printed in the text.

The main text contains a complete practical treatise of the art of printing, many different specimens of type are introduced (including forty-seven black letter types, twenty-one Roman, fourteen Italic forms) in addition to many Slavic, Greek and Hebrew founts, music founts, and special symbols for astrological and calendar signs. A variety of different type case arrangements are shown. Book production patterns and imposition are explained, the calculation of suitable formats, and the extent of books is explained.

Ernesti concludes with a brief essay on the Hebrew language and its special demands on the printer’s knowledge and ability. Ernesti (1664–1723), had taken over the Endters’ printing works in 1717, and here published the first account of this print shop. A second edition was published after his death, in 1733.

Boghardt, Typographische Lehrbücher, 14; Bigmore and Wyman, I, 205 (second edition of 1733); Ornamentstich Katalog Berlin, 5340; Gaskell, P.; Barber, G. and Warrilow, G. ‘An annotated list of printers’ manuals to 1850’, Journal of the Printing Historical Society, iv, 1968, pp. 11–32, G6.

Steinbeck, John. Untitled manuscript draft of Lyndon Johnson’s inaugural address, 424 words, 4 pages, commencing: “Some there art who think our country is an inheritance, a gift proffered like a sandwich on a clean doily on a silver tray. This is not so.” Legal size, yellow ruled foolscap, black ink. With typed transcription.

With undated cover letter, to Eric Goldman, [The White House]. 100 words, in the same format. A typed transcription is present. As are two statements of provenance.

“This is the best I can do in the time given me – You are free to do anything you want if you use it anonymously but if it is to be ascribed to me and you wish to change it, please let me see the changes before use.

Of course, we both know it will probably not be used and that’s all right too.

It is somewhat over the first time [“of 3 minutes” added in pencil to the typed transcription] you gave me but I bet it is shorter than any of the prayers.

And now I join the ranks of the loyal – even the loving opposition.

Yours,

John Steinbeck.”

Used, well no, not entirely. But some was used. This was used, scarcely a word changed:

“The great Society, as I see it, is not the fixed and sterile polity of the bees nor the ordered and changeless battalions of the ants.”

“It is the miracle of becoming – always becoming, trying, probing, failing, resting and trying again but always gaining a little – perfectable but not perfect.”

The letter to Eric Goldman is apparently unpublished. $90,000

Hawthorne, Nathaniel (1804–64). Autograph Poetical Quotation Signed (“Nathl Hawthorne”). London, May 17, 1860.

Being the first two verses of “Vivien’s Song” from Idylls of the King by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Six lines, beginning, “In Love, if Love be Love, if Love be ours...” Written in black ink on an album leaf; autograph heading “From the Idylls of the King.” Small 4to., recto only. In very good condition.

Hawthorne never met Tennyson, whom he called “the one poet” of the day. However, he saw him once, in Manchester, in 1857. On the same day as our manuscript was written, James T. Fields, Hawthorne’s publisher, gave him a copy of Idylls of the King as a gift for his wife, Sophia. It is now at Bowdoin. $5,000.

Hakluyt, Richard. The principall navigations, voiages and discoveries of the English nation, made by Sea or over Land… London: George Bishop and Ralph Newberie, deputies to Christopher Barker, 1589.

First edition. Folio. pp. [i] (map) [xvi] 643 [xii] 644-825 [x] (index). Three parts in one. Roman, Italic and Black letter. Engraved folding world map in a good impression after Abraham Ortelius mounted on guards at front, washed with very skilful minor repair to chip at top edge, one very short tear to bottom right fold, neither touching image. Large and attractive woodcut initials and headpieces. Light creasing (probably straightened) and soiling (perhaps washed) to title and subsequent page, small dampstain to upper margin of first few quires, not touching text, upper margins of early gatherings neatly repaired, two small tears to blank margins, lacking final blank. A very good copy in modern crushed morocco, covers with diaper pattern filled with gilt fleurons, spine in six compartments with raised bands, title gilt, all edges blue (19th-century). Contemporary autograph to upper left blank portion of title, ‘Richard Fair his writinge not Edmund [Ludlion?]’, Richard Coffin’s contemporary autograph in lower blank portion of title repeated in upper right blank portion of margin, Justice Coffin’s late 17th-century autograph to lower blank portion of title.

First edition, third issue, of the first English collection of voyages, complete with the very frequently missing world map and the rare account of Sir Francis Drake’s circumnavigation (1577–80), as well as Sir Jerome Bowes’ voyage to Muscovy in the cancel setting (second state). Hakluyt, although not an explorer himself, produced the most significant compilation of voyages of his day: “it is not only an epic of English prose but a unique source of reference to the great discoveries of the 15th and 16th centuries” (National Maritime Museum Catalogue). Hakluyt was a gifted geographer and linguist, educated at Westminster and Christ Church, Oxford. He was “one of the leading spirits in the Elizabethan maritime expansion” (Printing and the Mind of Man) and had met the foremost explorers of the age such as Drake, Raleigh, Gilbert and Frobisher, and corresponded with Ortelius and Mercator. With remarkable foresight, he saw America and India as key territories for the extension of the British colonies. The present work (dedicated to Sir Francis Walsingham) includes a number of important voyages to the Americas, among them Verazzano’s to Florida, Ulloa’s and Alarcon’s to California, Tomson’s to New Mexico, Drake’s to the West Indies, the Virginia settlement voyages of 1585 and later, as well as voyages to Russia and Africa (including the first voyage to Benin).

The account of Drake’s circumnavigation was first published here, and includes his explorations around the Californian coast. Hakluyt initially suppressed it, privately printing the six-page account and inserting it (without pagination, as here) into some copies of the first edition. “Hakluyt had indeed begun to prepare such an account [of Drake’s Circumnavigation] but withdrew it so as not to prejudice a collection of Drake’s voyages which was in preparation. Permission now came to insert it, not improbably from Drake himself” (Hakluyt Handbook, p. 475). He placed a high premium on the accuracy of his work, and reproduces verbatim letters and documents relating to the voyages. The impressive folding map, which Hakluyt tells us is “one of the best general mappes of the world” is based on several Ortelius maps, the central oval taken from his third World map of 1587 (Hinde I, p. 179).

‘Justice Coffin’ whose autograph appears on the title was almost certainly Peter Coffin, Chief Justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Court, son of Tristram Coffin. Tristram was born into a large and well-established Devonshire family in 1608/9 and moved to America in 1642. He was the leader of the ten original purchasers of Nantucket, and his family rapidly were rapidly successful in their new home; the characters of a Mr and Mrs Coffin of Nantucket feature at the beginning of Moby Dick. Richard Coffin’s autograph on the title is most likely that of Tristram’s elder cousin Richard, who fl. c. 1602. It is quite likely that Richard’s book was an encouragement to Tristram to emigrate to the attractive sounding new world, and that he took it with him on his subsequent voyage; a useful traveling companion and an early visitor to America in its own right.

We are grateful to the Nantucket Historical Association for their help with the provenance research for this item. STC 12625; National Maritime Museum Catalogue (2nd edition) I, p.5; Sabin 29593 “It is scarcely necessary to suggest that the addition of the original version of…Drake’s Voyages add greatly to the value of any copy of the work in which they happen to be”; James Ford Bell Library, H9; Alden 589/31; Lowndes III p. 971; Printing and the Mind of Man, p. 63 (second edition); cf. D. B. Quinn (ed.). The Hakluyt Handbook, The Hakluyt Society: 1974; not in Payne’s census, Anthony Payne, Richard Hakluyt and his Books, The Hakluyt Society: 1997; not in Pforzheimer.

£59,500 (about $120,000).

Eliot, T. S. Two-page letter with an unpublished poem, dated 7th June 1934 on Faber headed notepaper.

These documents center on Eliot’s pageant The Rock, which was performed 28 May to 9 June 1934 at Sadler’s Wells on behalf of the Forty-Five Churches Fund. Eliot’s letter, with an unpublished poem, “Cat’s Pageant,” is addressed to the mother of Patricia Shaw Page, an eleven-year-old girl who was appearing in The Rock as Dick Whittington’s cat. The Dick Whittington section of the production was a ballet choreographed by Antony Tudor, which came just before the “Builders’ Song” printed at page 28 in the published text.

This letter contains a prologue for the section, written especially for Patricia, which was not printed in the published text and has never appeared in any subsequent edition. The 10-line poem, written in rhyming couplets, wittily acknowledges the complete lack of narrative sense in introducing Dick Whittington into the play at this juncture. Indeed, it was probably written precisely to pre-empt this kind of criticism: “Be not astonished at this point to see/ Creep on the stage a little cat like me./ This pageant is a kind of pantomime/ Where anything may come at any time...” It contains hints of “Gus: the Theatre Cat” from Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, which came out in the same year: “In the Pantomime season I never fell flat,/ And I once understudied Dick Whittington’s cat.”

Patricia’s performance was obviously highly appreciated. In Eliot’s letter to her mother, he writes, “Let me reassure you about Patricia’s delivery of the verses. I thought she recited them very nicely indeed.” Another letter in this collection is a handwritten note dated 3 June 1934 from Rev. R. Webb Odell, the director of the Forty-Five Churches Fund, in which he asks Mrs. Shaw Page for a favor: “Will the delightful ‘Cat’ present a Bouquet (provided for the occasion) to Princess Alice. She is the ‘hit’!”

Mrs. Shaw Page was clearly ambitious for her daughter, as the remaining papers in this collection are a letter dated 25 April 1934 and a handwritten memo from John Macdonell, production manager for the Fox Film Company, discussing terms of employment for Patricia as a child actress. We can find no record of Patricia appearing in any films but she did continue her career in ballet. She was a dancer with the Ballet Rambert during the 1938–1939 season.

[with] Eliot, T. S. The Rock. London: Faber, 1934. 8vo. Original brown paper wrappers; previous owner’s inscription to ffep; very good. First edition, one of 1000 bound in wrappers.

$15,000

[Photographs] Collection of 26 Albumen Prints of Old Hawaii, circa 1898. A poignant group of images capturing both sides of the momentous transition that took place as a result of the U.S. annexation of Hawaii in 1898, including the lowering of the Hawaiian flag and the raising of the American flag over Iolanai Palace.

Old Hawaii is represented by a rich assemblage of virginal landscapes and native men and women engaged in fishing and other occupations; New Hawaii by army encampments, pineapple groves, and groomed plantations.

Twelve of the photos measure 6.5 by 8.5 inches, fourteen measure 7 by 9 inches. All are mounted on gray card stock. One bears the name of photographer J. A. Gonsalves, and two of the images correspond to those in John L. Stevens’ Picturesque Hawaii, attributed to Stevens’ daughter, Nellie. Several of the other photographs may also be by Gonsalves, a Portuguese immigrant who opened a photography studio in Honolulu that was active until at least 1908. His work is scarce and is represented in collections at the Bishop Museum, the Ransom Center in Texas, and the George Eastman House in Rochester, New York. $7,500

Proust, Marcel. A l’ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs. Eighteen holograph manuscript fragments, various sizes and shapes, mounted on heavy paper, showing traces of folding, “Cahier violet/No. 11” written in large script in blue ink in upper left corner (“No. 11” written directly over one of the ms. fragments), framed and glazed (frame window 47 x 58 cm). [Paris, before 1918].

One of the few remaining groups of manuscript fragments in private hands, and possibly the only one to include substantial unpublished passages, from A la recherche du temps perdu, Proust’s vast and unclassifiable masterpiece, one of the great works of Western literature. The fragments formed part of Proust’s manuscript draft for A l’ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs, the second novel in the seven-novel cycle, published in 1918 by the Nouvelle Revue Française. The present fragments were unavailable to the editors of the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade edition (1954), the most painstakingly accurate edition of Proust’s magnum opus, and are substantially unpublished.

The vast majority of the surviving manuscripts and galley proofs for Remembrance of Things Past are in the collections of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France and a few other French institutions, the BNF having acquired Proust’s literary archive from Proust’s niece Suzy Mante-Proust in 1962. Only a few papers were separated from the main archive (one such group of corrected galley proofs, for the first volume, Du côté de chez Swann, appeared at auction in 2000, where it fetched a record price for a French literary manuscript). The present manuscript fragments were removed from Proust’s literary possessions in 1919 or 1920, under the following circumstances: The first volume of the work, Du côté de chez Swann, was published in 1913 by Bernard Grasset at Proust’s expense, after it was turned down by various publishers, including—on the advice of André Gide—Gaston Gallimard’s Nouvelle Revue Française (N.R.F.). World War I intervened before Proust was ready to publish the next volume, promised by contract to Grasset. In 1916 a repentant Gide approached Proust proposing that he move to the N.R.F. Thus in 1917 Gallimard acquired the rights to the remainder of the novel cycle and to the approximately 600 unsold copies of Swann’s Way. In 1918 the N.R.F. published the first edition of A l’ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs. Proust continued, in his usual fashion, to revise, and in 1920 the same publishers issued a special, corrected and revised limited edition of this second novel, printed in 50 copies on grand papier, with a frontispiece portrait of Proust, and with the addition to each copy of two to four sheets from the copy-text, a bewildering combination of manuscript fragments and of printed galleys, as described by André Ferré in his preface to the Pléiade edition: “What Proust called his ‘manuscript’ for the Jeunes filles is a strange mosaic in which long autograph fragments alternate with galley proofs, corrected and uncorrected, some from Grasset (1914), others from the N.R.F. [edition]; the whole thing was in any case taken apart in order to ‘truffer’ [extra-illustrate] each of the 50 copies of the folio edition. We were only able to locate approximately one fourth of these copies*” (p. xxvi, our translation; the number was actually considerably less than one fourth, see below).

Not surprisingly, given the copy-texts the compositors had to work with, the printing of Proust’s texts was a nightmare, and none of the published editions is entirely accurate. By 1920 Proust was more or less uninvolved in the final proofing of the novel (cf. Pléiade edition, I, p. xxiv), and, notwithstanding their intention to correct the faults of the earlier edition, the often egregious interventions of the N.R.F. editors made the edition as unreliable as its predecessor. The editors of the Pléiade edition were only able to examine 12 of the 100 or so sheets bound into the 1920 edition (see p. 965). The present sheet, entirely manuscript, was not among them.

The authors of the Bibliothèque Nationale 1965 exhibition catalogue on Proust remark that Proust’s notebooks are remarkable for being filled with countless small cut-out slips of paper or “paperoles” upon which the author continually scribbled revisions of his text (BN, Marcel Proust, no. 371). Several such “paperoles” are included here, as well as a few longer portions of manuscript pages. The backing on which the fragments are pasted was originally folded several times to fit a quarto volume of the 1920 edition. Designated by the editors no. 11, this sheet was originally preserved in copy number XXVIII of the 1920 edition, along with another group of manuscript fragments and two corrected galley proofs from the same notebook, designated “cahier violet nos. 19, 23, and 24.”

The assemblage with its deletions, interlinear additions, and larger insertions on cut-out strips or pieces of paper, vividly displays Proust’s typical working method: “The mass of [his] modifications consist of additions. Proust was singularly careful to preserve his thoughts, and every written fragment was carefully kept ... For Marcel Proust, revising signified completing or filling out… Proust inserts his additions as one would insert a wedge into a crack, separating, so to speak, the walls of the paragraph…” (A. Feuillerat, Comment Marcel Proust a composé son roman, 1934, pp. 108-109). The editors of the Pléiade describe the typical appearance of the proofs: “Proust’s additions covered the margins of the proofs, and overflowed onto blank pages, which were pasted onto the galleys and ended up forming endless strips… The printer naturally had more and more trouble making head or tail of these scribbles and inextricable insertions; the errors passed from proof to proof, each time augmented with new errors - until the day when the editor, horrifed by this endless amplification of mistakes, took upon himself the authority to declare the ‘bon à tirer’ “ (p. xxv).

Mounted on card, these fragments, originating in several different drafts, additions, and rewritings, constitute a variant on a single passage in the published novel (cf. Volume III, pp. 829-831 of the Pléiade edition, 1954), during the period immediately following the narrator’s first glimpse of the group of girls on the beach in Balbec, and describing the beginnings of his longings to meet them (longings which will eventually narrow to an obsessional love for one of the girls, Albertine). One of the longest unpublished passages, approximately 300 words, is a typically Proustian reflection on desire and the mystery of unknown faces and beings.

This is one of the most significant manuscript fragments of Proust’s masterpiece remaining in private hands.

Provenance: Jacques Guérin (sale, Paris, 4 June 1986, part lot 108) — Pierre Berès, sale, Paris Part III, 16 December, 2005, lot 386.

$125,000

[Martyr, Peter] De Nuper sub D. Carolo Repertis Insulis, simulatq[ue] incolarum moribus, R. Petri Martyris, Enchiridion, Dominae Margaritae, Diui Max. Caef. filiae dicatum. Basel: Adam Petri, 1521.

Small 4to., pp. [2]–19; 24–25 [but 20–21]; 22–43; early 19th century full vellum lightly browned; later endpapers; woodcut border to title page; library markings in ink and inkstamp to endpapers, title leaf, and verso of final text leaf; leaves shaved at margins with no loss of text; scattered holograph notes in an early hand; a perfect and very good copy.

First edition. According to Streeter, this book is Martyr’s first narrative of the discoveries made by the Cortez expedition to Mexico. “Harrisse called this work an extract of the Fourth Decade but it is evidently a much more important work, Stevens and other authors defining it as a substitute for the lost first Cortes letter. The work supplements, rather than overlaps other narratives by the author.”

The author, Peter Martyr d’Anghiera, chronicled the discoveries of the early Spanish explorers in the New World, and especially those of Columbus, Balboa, and Cortez. Martyr held various posts under the Spanish crown, but one of the most important was historian to the Council of the Indies, a body initially commissioned to describe events transpiring in the New World. In that capacity he wrote the works for which he is best known today. In the year of his appointment, 1511, he published the first of his eight “Decades,” narratives compiled and based in part on letters from the discoverers themselves. De Nuper sub D. Carolo Repertis Insulis was published the same year as the fourth Decade (1521), but appears to have been a separate work. The report is based on information contained in the lost first letter of Cortez to Emperor Charles V, and has to do with preparations (in Cuba) and the initial landing of Cortez’ expedition in the Yucatan, then considered an island. The lost Cortez letter is supposed to have been written at Vera Cruz, July 10, 1519 and neither the manuscript nor any printed version have been found. It may have been suppressed by the Council or it may have been truly lost. As far as we have been able to determine, there is also no printed English translation of this report by Martyr.

As an aside, the decorative woodcut border for the title leaf was designed by Hans Holbein. Dedication superscribed by the editor, Adam Petri. A rare book, especially in trade. No auction records located for at least the last quarter-century. Streeter Vol. I, No. 8; Sabin 1553; JCB I, 79; Winsor, Narrative & Critical History of America Vol. I, p. xxi.

$65,000

Rare Handkerchief Advertisement for UNCLE TOM’S CABIN

[Stowe, Harriet Beecher] Whittier, John G[reenleaf]. Handkerchief: “LITTLE EVA SONG. UNCLE TOM’S GUARDIAN ANGEL”. [Boston]: John P. Jewett & Co., 1852.

Advertisement in the form of a handkerchief for Harriet Beecher Stowe’s UNCLE TOM’S CABIN. Handkerchief: 11 x 11” (plus margins), white cotton, printed in black on one side. LITTLE EVA SONG.[ in banner type] / [decorative rule ]/ UNCLE TOM’S GUARDIAN ANGEL. / Vignette with caption, Little Eva and Uncle Tom in the Arbor (after the illustration entitled “Little Eva Reading the Bible to Uncle Tom in the Arbor”) / Words by / Music by / John G. Whittier. / Manuel Emilio. / [two bars of music and words with two additional verses of “Little Eva” printed below] / [rule] /Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1852, by John P. Jewett & Co. in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. All within an elaborate 1-1/4” frame with dramatic masks at the corners, intertwining roses, trumpet flowers and leaves with ribbon banners threaded through and decorated with putti. The banners read (from the top edge): “Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe, is a Picture of American Slavery, not overdrawn, since Southern Publications them - selves give as facts accounts of characters and incidents fully matching anything this book presents—115,000 copies of 230,000 vols. have been sold in 6 months Jewett & Co. Publishers”. Housed in an early twentieth century clamshell box of half green morocco with green cloth, which is rubbed around the spine and has a few spots to the rear cover. The handkerchief mildly age-toned; dot of foxing at lower half; edges frayed (original machine stitching at edges lacking). About very good.

John Jewett had pledged Harriet Beecher Stowe to promote UNCLE TOM’S CABIN assiduously and “spare no expense nor effort to push the book into an unparalleled circulation”. Joan Hedrick in her very fine biography of Harriet Beecher Stowe explains “the cultural elaborations of this publishing event are owing to his efforts”, as both the handkerchief and the John Greenleaf Whittier verses which inspired it attest. One contemporary observer noted the novel quickly had been adapted to the stage and “will enter largely into exhibitions of paintings and statuary. It will have its music”. Jewett ensured the book would have its music by commissioning John Greenleaf Whittier for $50.00 to write a poem about Little Eva “and getting someone else to set the words to music”. Whittier, a dedicated abolitionist, was the movement’s premier poet. The verses “Little Eva’s Song” first appeared in the newspaper THE INDEPENDENT and circulated from hand to hand. The publisher then brought out the sheet music and subsequently printed this advertisement.

The publication of UNCLE TOM’S CABIN met with extraordinary success, multiple printings being quickly exhausted and the novel receiving English and European publication within months. The publisher’s “cultural elaborations” pushed the abolitionist novel into the realm of popular culture where it achieved an iconic status. For many Americans resistant to abolitionist tracts, the novel forever obliterated pro-slavery arguments. Its transmutation into other artistic and material forms further intensified its hold on public sentiment and imagination. BAL 22249 (handkerchief). See BAL 21776 for “Little Eva: Uncle Tom’s Guardian Angel” (sheet music). THREADS OF HISTORY, 233. Hedrick, HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. OCLC records two copies, one at the University of Delaware and another at the University of Virginia. A third is in a private collection and we are aware of a fourth copy, location unknown. The University of Virginia also holds a variant, unrecorded by BAL, which displays advertisements for Boston merchants, but lacks the text regarding UNCLE TOM’S CABIN.

$3,500