[Rarebooks] FS: INSCRIBED on Christmas Day by Washington Irving, THE ALHAMBRA, 1851

[Charles Agvent]

IRVING, Washington. THE ALHAMBRA. New York: George P. Putnam, 1851. 
Revised Edition. Publisher's full gray morocco leather elaborately 
decorated in gilt on the covers and spine, gilt dentelles, all edges 
gilt. Revised Edition illustrated with full- and part-page drawings by 
Felix O. C. Darley "engraved by the most eminent artists." This copy 
INSCRIBED and SIGNED by the author on a front blank: "To/Miss Mary 
Mulhollan/from her friend/Washington Irving/Sunnyside Dec. 25th 1856." A 
scarce inscribed book, on Christmas Day nonetheless, from one of the 
writers most responsible for how Christmas is perceived and celebrated 
in America. In his 1812 revision to A HISTORY OF NEW YORK, for example, 
Irving included a dream sequence featuring St. Nick soaring over 
treetops in a flying wagon---a creation others would later dress up as 
Santa Claus. THE ALHAMBRA consists of essays and short fiction pieces 
based on his experiences living in the historic Alhambra Palace in 
Granada and his travels in Spain. Housed in the scarce original morocco 
slipcase. Occasional light foxing, but a generally clean, handsome copy, 
Near Fine. The slipcase is complete but for the piece that stretched 
across the open end which had a clasp of some sort to lock into the 
metal section still remaining on the slipcase.

Washington Irving was America's first genuine internationally 
best-selling author and the first American to earn his living from his 
writing alone. (#017266)        $3,500.00

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