[Rarebooks] FS: O.W. Holmes: AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST TABLE signed three times with two examples of his most famous poem
Charles Agvent
chagvent at ptd.net
Fri Feb 26 16:22:25 EST 2010
From our newly posted catalog: HAWTHORNE, HOLMES, & MELVILLE. All 50
items can be seen on our home page: http://www.charlesagvent.com
[HOLMES, Oliver Wendell]. THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST TABLE. EVERY MAN
HIS OWN BOSWELL. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1890. Revised
Edition. Small octavo (3-1/4" x 5-5/8") in original flexible blue cloth.
A Grolier American 100 book, this would be a run-of-the-mill copy but
for the remarkable holograph additions by Holmes within. On the recto of
the ad page before the title page announcing other titles by Holmes the
author has handwritten the last and best known stanza of his famous poem
"The Last Leaf"--"And if I should live to be/The last leaf upon the
tree/In the spring,/Let them smile, as I do now,/At the old forsaken
bough/Where I cling"--and SIGNED with his initials and the dates 1831
and 1890 corresponding to the date of authorship and the date of the
inscription. There is some light feathering to the ink on some of the
words which is likely why the poem is lightly striked with an x in
pencil and written out AGAIN by Holmes on the light yellow front
endpaper, again in ink, and SIGNED as before. In addition, on the front
blank between the two pages with the holograph manuscript, the author
has INSCRIBED and SIGNED the book: Dr. W. E. Rust/with the kind regards
of/Oliver Wendell Holmes." Some toning to the text. Neatly and recently
rebacked retaining the original spine, the cloth clean and bright. Near
Fine.
Dr. Rust was a surgeon operating in California in the 1850s and was
contracted by the U.S. Government in the 1870s to work with the
Apaches. $2,000.00
--
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