[Rarebooks] fs ROMANCE of YACHTING.Hart.1848.1st Edit

[r.azzi at comcast.net]

Prior to posting on ebay I offer the following:

JOSEPH C. HART (1798 - 1855)….. The ROMANCE OF YACHTING: Voyage the first. New York, Harper and Brothers, 1848. First Edition. 332 pages and 28 pages of advertisements. ALL ORIGINAL. NOT EX-LIBRARY. Original cloth, gilt spine title and ship on front cover. Light foxing on title page only. Some form of staining on the endpapers – perhaps from the glue used. Hinges are tight and unbroken. Some darkening to the spine and wear on the edges and extremities. Includes his journal of a yacht voyage to Spain, notes on the techniques of navigation across the Atlantic, and Vocabulary of Sea Terms or Nautical Phrases. A very scarce work. It includes an essay by Hart on the Bacon / Shakespeare authorship controversy (pages 208-243), about which this is one of the key, and perhaps first, American works. Also, Hart wrote, in 1834, Miriam Coffin; or, The Whale Fisherman, the first novel to deal with whaling. Hart, a lawyer and journalist, wrote Miriam Coffin to build congressional support for the 
whaling industry. 

This book was owned by Charles N(elson) Robinson of Hartford, Connecticut, whom I believe is the same Charles Nelson Robinson of the Robinson Foundation and Fund in that State. Also attached is a postcard to C. N. Robinson from “Day (Rudder)” saying he got the book from Com (Commodore?) Maier”.

Even a hundred years ago this was a difficult book to find. Robinson’s notes in pencil also say it took him nearly two years to find the book. Enclosed is a letter from a bookseller in Cleveland nearly apologizing for charging $6.50 for it, due to its scarcity. 

Also attached, to the inside of the rear free endpaper, is a very large newspaper article, folded several times – complete but brittle – related to the Shakespeare controversy.

Has an ownership signature of James McQuade on the contents page and McQuade’s name stamped on the title page. McQuade, of the New York Yacht Club, was author of The Cruise of the Montauk to Bermuda, the West Indies and Florida. 

Questions are welcome.

Postpaid w/Insurance in the USA: $475.--

Payment through Paypal.

Regards,
Robert Azzi
Samarkand Books
Exeter NH
1.603.770.4125