[Rarebooks] FS: Teddy Roosevelt's copy of Dickens's Pickwick
Charles Agvent
agvent at erols.com
Tue Oct 23 12:49:01 EDT 2007
[ROOSEVELT, Theodore (Teddy)] DICKENS, Charles. THE POSTHUMOUS
PAPERS OF THE PICKWICK CLUB. London: Thomas Nelson and Sons [1912]. A
nondescript reprint of one of Dickens's most loved books
distinguished by a superb SIGNED INSCRIPTION by the former President
on the first blank: "To/Leo E. Miller/with the heartiest/good wishes
of his/friend/Theodore Roosevelt/May 19th 1914." When Roosevelt went
to Africa in 1909, he took with him a small collection of books known
as the Pigskin Library, a present to him from his sister Corinne of
books bound in pigskin. Among those books were two novels by Dickens,
one of which was PICKWICK. When Roosevelt went to Brazil in late 1913,
he brought no books. For his return home he purchased fifty books
and, sitting on the deck each day, read them all before his ship
reached New York on May 19. That is the very day Roosevelt presented
this particular volume to Leo Miller, one of two naturalists from The
American Museum of Natural History who, along with Roosevelt's son
Kermit, accompanied him on his six-month trek through the Amazon
basin. Roosevelt seems to have been especially fond of the young
Miller because he had literary as well as scientific interests. When
her brother returned from this trip to South America, Corrine
Roosevelt Robinson claimed he was "a man in whom a secret poison
still lurked" who was never again "wholly free from recurrent attacks
of the terrible jungle fever." Theodore Roosevelt would die about
five years later having just turned sixty. One page with a closed
tear. Housed in a blue cloth chemise in a black morocco-backed
slipcase with gilt lettering and raised bands. Very Good in handsome
chemise and slipcase. $6500.00
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CHARLES AGVENT
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610-682-4750
agvent at erols.com
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