[Rarebooks] FS: 1851 Memoir of American Folk Painter

[Joslin Hall Rare Books, ABAA]

"MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE AND RELIGIOUS LABORS OF EDWARD HICKS, late of
Newtown, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Written by Himself"

Philadelphia; Merrihew & Thompson: 1851.

The memoirs of one of the 19th century's most famous folk artists. Alice
Ford described the memoir as "part diary, part retrospective
autobiography, part contemplative soliloquy". Hicks, a devout Quaker,
notes in the Introduction-

"My constitutional nature has presented formidable obstacles to the
attainment of that truly desirable character, a consistent and exemplary
member of the Religious Society of Friends one of which is an excessive
fondness for painting, a trade to which I was brought up, being connected
with coach making, and followed the greatest part of my life having been
unsuccessful in every attempt to make an honest and honorable living by a
more consistent business and now in the decline of life, near my
seventieth year, with a body reduced to a mere skeleton, racked by
tremendous cough, with scarcely breath and strength at times to breathe or
walk, I should be a burthen on my family or friends were it not for my
knowledge of painting, by which I am still enabled to minister to my own
necessities."

Hick's memoir provides real insight into his religious life, which was at
the core of his art. Autobiographies by 19th century American folk artists
are almost nonexistent Hick's memoir is becoming more difficult to locate
in the trade every year.

Hardcover. 5"x8", 365 pages; publisher's ribbed and embossed dark brown
cloth with gilt spine title; covers somewhat scuffed and a bit worn, tips
and spine head and foot lightly chipped; contents with light to moderate
foxing, as usual.  [30838]  $350.00


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