antiquarian bookseller - Peter Harrington

Peter Harrington Antiquarian Bookseller
106.CUSTER, Elizabeth B.
Tenting on The Plains or General
Custer in Kansas and Texas.
New York, Charles L. Webster and Company, 1887 [30601]
£375
8vo. Recent full dark blue morocco, title and decoration
to spine gilt, rule to boards gilt, marbled endpapers, top
edge gilt. Engraved portrait frontispiece, 28 full-page line
illustrations. Fly-title adhering to first page of text at inner
margin and slightly chipped, else a fine copy.
FIRST EDITION. The second of Libbie Custer’s three books
(the others were Boots and Saddles, 1885, and Following
the Guidon, 1890), brilliant pieces of propaganda aimed at
glorifying her dead husband’s memory.
107.DE LONG, George W.
The Voyage of the Jeannette. The
Ship and the Ice Journals … Edited
by his Wife, Emma De Long.
Boston, Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1883 [39030] £800
2 volumes, 8vo. Original pebble-grained brown pictorial cloth,
gilt. Steel-engraved portrait frontispiece to vol. I and one
other similar portrait, tinted lithographic frontispiece to vol. II,
13 wood-engraved plates in all, numerous illustrations, maps,
charts and diagrams to the text, some full-page, folding map
in end-pocket to the first volume. Marginal browning as usual,
folding map differentially browned, but overall a very good,
tight set, the binding just a little rubbed at the extremities. A
particularly bright and well-preserved set.
FIRST EDITION. The Jeannette was originally the
unfortunately named HMS Pandora, a Royal Naval gunboat.
She was purchased by James Gordon Bennett,
the owner of the New York Herald, best known for his
sponsorship of Stanley in the search for Livingstone, and
fitted out for an expedition to the North Pole via the
Bering Strait. With the permission of Congress she was
crewed with US Naval officers and sailed under naval
regulations though privately owned. Caught in pack
ice near Wrangel Island the ship, whose hull had been
massively reinforced, held strong as she drifted for 21
months whilst the crew continued to keep scrupulously
maintained records. In June 1881 however, the hull gave
out and they were forced to abandon ship. The crew
escaped on three boats but, after storms and exposure
to appalling conditions most perished, including De Long
himself. The chief engineer, George W. Melville, survived
and returned in search of fellow survivors, bringing back
the logs which formed the basis of these volumes. From
the evidence of De Long’s observations and the later
discovery of fragments of the Jeannette on the American
side of the Arctic Ocean, Nansen consolidated the theory
which underpinned the Fram expedition.
108.DICKENS, Charles.
American Notes for General
Circulation.
London: Chapman and Hall, 1842 [40214] £47,500
2 volumes, 8vo (197 × 126 mm). Original reddish-brown
cloth, decorated in blind, gilt-lettered on spine. Half-titles,
advertisement leaf at front of vol. 1, 6-page advertisements
at end of vol. 2. Provenance: Daniel Maclise (1806–1870), Irish
painter (presentation inscription from the author); Kenyon
Starling (bookplate); thence by gift to William E. Self. Spines
and board edges slightly darkened, some light wear to joints,
an excellent copy.
FIRST EDITION, in the primary binding, first issue with verso
of the contents leaf incorrectly numbered “xvi”. A very fine
association copy, inscribed by Dickens to his close friend,
Inscribed by Dickens
the painter Daniel Maclise on the half-title in volume one:
“Daniel Maclise From his friend Charles Dickens Eighteenth
October 1842,” one day prior to its official publication.
Maclise was one of the first of his closest friends that
Dickens went to visit after returning from his tiring trip
to America in 1842. After an excited greeting from his
children, Dickens dashed off to see William Macready,
then quickly to John Forster. Forster was dining out, but
he “guessed at once what [his interruption] was when
Dickens drove there and sent up word that a gentleman
wished to speak to him. Forster came flying out of the
house, leaped into the carriage, and began to cry, and
did not remember until they had driven several miles on
their way to see Maclise that he had left his hat behind
him” (Johnson, Charles Dickens, 1952, p.428). A reunion
dinner the following week included Maclise as one of the
featured guests, along with Forster, Macready, Cruikshank
and Cattermole. Both slightly before and after this period,
Maclise was completing his portraits of Dickens’s children.
After the reunions subsided, Dickens began work on
American Notes and borrowed back from his closest
correspondents, including Maclise, letters that he had
written during this journey, using them in the writing
of the book. This copy was inscribed for Maclise the day
before its official publication. Dickens’s travel book caused
immense controversy in America, after he criticised many
aspects of the national character.
Eckel, pp. 108–09; Smith II:3; Yale/Gimbel A66.
109.DIXON, George.
Catalogue 57: Travel Section 3: The Americas, Greenland and the Arctic
A Voyage Round the World; But
more particularly to the North-West
Coast of America: performed in
1785, 1786, 1787, and 1788, in the
King George and Queen Charlotte,
Captains Portlock and Dixon.
London: published by Geo. Goulding, 1789 [17430] £3750
4to (279 × 210 mm). Contemporary tree calf, smooth spine
with red morocco label, gilt bands. 17 plates (of which 3 are
folding) and 5 folding maps. Engraved bookplate of Joseph
Grote; early bookseller’s ticket of J. B. Smith, Old Compton St.
Skilful restoration to joints and spine-ends, some occasional
foxing, stamp skilfully removed from title.
FIRST EDITION of a voyage of which two distinct accounts
were published, those of the two Captains Portlock
and Dixon. The bulk of Dixon’s text was actually written
by the supercargo of the Queen Charlotte, William
Beresford; Dixon added the introduction, two significant
appendices and the valuable maps. The voyage was rich in
geographical results, though primarily intended to advance
the fur trade, in which object it was fully successful.
Dixon had served on James Cook’s last voyage in 1776.
He wrote to Sir Joseph Banks in August 1784, urging the
overland exploration of Canada from Quebec to the northwest
coast of North America, and a year later set sail in
command of the Queen Charlotte in company with the King
George, whose captain, Nathaniel Portlock, had been his
shipmate in the Resolution and was now the commander
of the expedition. They doubled Cape Horn and touched
at the Sandwich (Hawaiian) Islands, reaching north-west
America, near the mouth of Cook Inlet, on 18 July 1786.
They remained there for several weeks, but bad weather
prevented them entering King George’s Sound (Nootka
Sound), and they returned to winter at the Sandwich
Islands. They reached the north-west coast of North
America again in April 1787 and explored independently
of each other, before sailing home via Macao.
“Dixon was employed as far south as Nootka Sound (in
mid-August), purchasing sea otter pelts from the Haida,
taking eager note of Native American manners and
customs, as well as of the trade facilities, and making a
careful survey of the several points which came within
his reach. James Cook had already denoted the general
outline of the coast but the detail was still wanting, much
of which Dixon now provided. Of these additions the most
important was the large archipelago that he named Queen
Charlotte Islands and later described as having surpassed
‘our most sanguine expectations, and afforded a greater
quantity of furs than perhaps any place hitherto known’”
(ODNB). “Dixon’s voyage is important as a supplement
to Captain Cook and for its contributions to the natural
history of the Pacific Northwest” (Hill).
Hill 117; Howe P-496; Howgego D58; Sabin 64389; Smith 8303; for
Portlock’s account, see item 132 below.
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