[Rarebooks] FS: Juvenile whaling, 1843

[powersrarebooks at comcast.net]

I can offer... 

  

The Child’s Book of Whales.   Concord, NH: Rufus Merrill and Co., 1843.   16mo (4 ¼ by 3 inches), original self-wrappers with a small woodcut vignette of a whale on the upper cover.   16 pp.   With one full-page woodcut depicting the harpooning and cutting out of a whale, and two smaller woodcuts in the text (one repeated from the cover).   Spine with a small split at the bottom, the rear cover (also the last page of text) with a short closed tear and some abrasion that costs several letters in the last paragraph; some soiling the last two pages, but generally a good copy. 

  

An uncommon and interesting, if abbreviated, account of the whale’s natural history and the methods used to capture them.   The last five pages are an abridged account of the loss of the whaleship Essex, taken from Owen Chase’s narrative. 

  

$100 

  

http://home.comcast.net/~powersrarebooks/ChildsWhalesCov.jpg 

http://home.comcast.net/~powersrarebooks/ ChildsWhalesRearCov.jpg 

http://home.comcast.net/~powersrarebooks/ ChildsWhalesSpread.jpg 

http://home.comcast.net/~powersrarebooks/ ChildsWhalesIllus.jpg ChildsWhalesIllus.jpg 



  

Greg Powers 

Powers Rare Books 

344 Orange Street 

Manchester NH  03104 

603-624-9707 

powersrarebooks at comcast.net