Hartford: D. F. Robinson & Co. and Norton & Russell, 1826. 1st Edition. 3/4 leather. Octavo. 426 pages. It contains eulogies by future President John Tyler, Daniel Webster, William Wirt, Caleb Cushing, and several others. Samuel Smith of Baltimore mentions Charles Carroll of Carrollton as the lone surviving Signer following..... More
New York: Jonathan Cape & Harrison Smith, (1931). First American Edition. Hardcover. Duodecimo. 109 pages. Rare book by the Father of the Boy Scouts, reviewing the positive roles played by such organizations in fostering healthy, happy, and helpful citizens of nations and the world. Bound in black cloth over boards..... More
[Baltimore]: (Printing Bureau, Police Department), 1925. Flexible cloth. Sixteenmo. 158 pages. 1925 pocket handbook for Baltimore Policemen with detailed descriptions of over 50 rules of expected conduct in a variety of situations. Pencilled ownership inscription on front pastedown: "Officer Michael J. Moloney / Northeastern District." There is a $5.00 receipt..... More
Philadelphia: The Franklin Press, 1909. First edition. Black & White Photographs, 1 fold-out map. Full cloth. Octavo. [x], 276, [2] pages. A Chesapeake Bay classic. The first book to draw significant attention to the Bay as ideally suited for pleasure boating. The Barrie brothers were members of the Corinthian Yacht..... More
Annapolis: Thomas J. Wilson, Printer, 1862. Wrappers. Octavo. 15 pages. Augustus W. Bradford, as the Union Party candidate for governor, defeated Democrat Benjamin C. Howard by nearly 30,000 votes on November 6, 1861. Maryland had seemed to teeter on the brink of secession just 6 or 7 months earlier. Bradford's..... More
(S.l.): (S.n.), [1900]. Cartoon on rear cover. Wrappers. Duodecimo. 16 pages. Williams Jennings Bryan, the Democratic nominee for President in 1900, delivers a speech against the reign of monopolies he saw as having been abetted by McKinley and the Republicans. Bryan ultimately would lose to the incumbent, McKinley, who would..... More
Washington: Government Printing Office, 1918. First Edition. Fold-out plans, tables, photographs. Original cloth. Octavo. 96 pages. Scarce, Confidential manual on the weaponry associated with U. S. Army aircraft and pilots in World War I. Sections on the Marlin, the Lewis, and the Vickers aircraft machine guns, synchronizing gears, machine gun..... More
London: William Heinemann, Ltd., (1972). Color plates, black and white illustrations in text. Half leather. Octavo. 162 pages. A particularly handsome copy of Alice featuring the groundbreaking 1907 illustrations by Arthur Rackham. Rackham's work on Alice was controversial at the time. Purists felt that none but the original drawings by..... More
New York: David Mckay, 1937. First Edition. First Printing. Full cloth. Octavo. 243 pages pages. Fictionalized memoir of a Southern "mammy," tracing her story from early life and capture in Africa, being sold in America, her "happy childhood on a southern plantation, and her unhappy girlhood; her role as "Mammy"..... More
Shanghai: Kelly & Walsh, Limited, 1934. First edition. Photographs, cartoons, some with color. Hardcover. Folio. 88 pages. A stunning collection of photographs of people and sights in early 1930s Peking, augmented with charming drawings by the Austrian expat cartoonist, Friedrich Schiff. Scarce, particularly so in the original dust jacket. Contemporaneous..... More
New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, (1956). Limited Edition, #421 of 450. Paintings, some color. Hardcover. Octavo. [12], vii-x, 302 pages. Chamberlain's memoir details his personal adventures in Mexico and the American Southwest before, during, and after the Mexican War. It is the primary source for Cormac McCarthy's masterpiece, Blood..... More
North East and Annapolis: 1864. Loose sheets. Dr. Charles T. Simpers and his wife, Eliza, lived in the town of North East, in Cecil County, Maryland. This group of letters from late 1864 opens a window into the trials and feelings of a couple separated by the Civil War. Eliza..... More
New York: Charles Magnus, [1863?]. Colored woodcut headpiece. Single leaf approximately 5" x 8" Union Civil War songsheet with Copperhead sentiments. "Abraham Lincoln...stop this war, It's all played out..." Also references the Conscription Act which was passed in March, 1863: "The Conscription act it now is passed, and we'll be..... More
London: Faber and Faber Limited, (1938). First UK edition. Black & white photographs, drawings. Cloth over boards. Octavo. 199 pages. An enlightening portrait of John Wilkes Booth written by the person who probably knew and loved him best--his sister, Asia. While Edwin Booth and other family members tried to blot..... More
[Chicago]: R. R. Donnelley & Sons Co., [1970]. Facsimile. Broadside, 15 3/4" x 19 1./2" In the early hours of July 5, 1776, Philadelphia printer John Dunlap set the Declaration of Independence in type under the supervision of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams. He printed a small number..... More
Wilmington: R. France & Co., 1861. Broadside. 7 3/4" x 19" A fantastic 1861 promotional handbill for a lottery to augment public finance. The Consolidated Lottery of Delaware was authorized by the legislature in January, 1859 as an act for the encouragement of internal improvements in the State of Delaware..... More
Wilmington: 1787. Single sheet, folded once to approximately 7 1/2" x 9 1/4" Charming letter from Founding Father John Dickinson to a Daniel Clymer, then a member of the Pennsylvania State Assembly. In the letter, Dickinson acknowledges a prior gift of books from Clymer and belatedly presents a gift of..... More
Salem: Marine Research Society, 1928. Limited edition. Black and white plates. Vellum backed boards, quarto, 478 pages. A history of shipbuilding in Massachusetts, followed by 215 plates taken from ship portraits from the Peabody Museum and private collections. This is copy #43 of 97 on American Vellum. Handsome nautical bookplate..... More
[1941]. #10 of 10. Black and white photograph. Photograph mounted on board. 1931 Walker Evans photograph, sometimes known as "Bed and Stove, Truro, Massachusetts," printed by Evans in 1941 for the exhibition "American Photographs at $10" at The Museum of Modern Art in New York. SIGNED twice on the mount..... More
Boston: David Clapp, 1847. First Edition. Wrappers. Octavo. 29, [iii], xviii pages. Scarce pamphlet concerning the Jackson-Morton dispute over the discovery of ether's effectiveness as a surgical anesthetic in 1846. More
Washington: Mathew Brady, [1862-1863]. Black and white photograph. Mounted on a 2" x 4" card. Original albumen photographic profile vignette of a seated General Hooker, facing left. Imprint of Brady Studio, Washington, in bottom margin. Inscribed on back of the mount "Joseph Hooker / Maj. Genl." General Hooker's aggressive..... More
Fort Worth: Western Heritage Press, (1971). First Edition. Black & white photos, facsimiles, etc. Hardcover. Octavo. 202 pages. History of New Mexico's rugged frontier rangers and their fight for law and order in the territory. In addition to his other research, Hornung was able to gather personal recollections from the..... More
New York: Nicholas L. Brown, Inc., 1932. Limited edition. Illustrations by Hugo Gellert. Hardcover. Octavo. 73 pages. Stanley Kimmel is better known for "The Mad Booths of Maryland" and other historical works, but was a very talented World War I era poet and friend of Ernest Hemingway. This..... More
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1971. First American edition, Review Copy. Full cloth. Octavo. 446 pages. An extraordinary novel set in the midst of political upheaval at the beginning of the Irish War of Independence in the summer of 1919. Was awarded the Lost Man Booker for 1970 in 2010..... More
New York: Simon and Schuster, (1973). First printing. Hardcover. Octavo. 176 pages. Harrison's second novel, featuring a poet who loves only fishing (and girls), a Vietnam vet who loves only violence (and drugs), and beautiful long-legged girl who loves only one of them (at first). This trio of innocents sets..... More