[Rarebooks] fa: 1790 NEW-YORK MAGAZINE or LITERARY REPOSITORY - Engraving of Hell Gate + Ann Eliza Bleecker &c.

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, November 2. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching under the seller name arch_in_la.

http://tinyurl.com/phzj5gm

Thanks,
Ardwight Chamberlain
L.A.


The New-York Magazine; or, Literary Repository: For September, 1790. Number IX. Volume I. New York: Printed by T. and J. Swords, at their Printing Office, 1790. First edition. Slim 8vo (20 cm) in later crimson morocco and marbled boards, spine tooled in gilt; [2], [497]-554 p. (60 pp. total); with a copper-engraved plate.

A handsome and very scarce example of this early American periodical whose subscribers included George Washington, John Adams, Chief Justice John Jay and New York Mayor Richard Varick. Published from January 1790 to December 1797, and eventually numbering close to 100 issues, the New-York Magazine was the longest-running American periodical of the era and has been described as one of "the most important post-Revolution magazines" (F.L. Mott, A History of American Magazines 1741-1850,) and "the best magazine published in this city before 1800… well edited, and rendered additionally interesting by the copper-plate engravings in each number…now exceedingly scarce" ("Early American Magazines" in Printers' Ink, vol. xix, no. 10).

In this, the magazine's ninth issue, the contents include:
	- A Description of HELL-GATE, with an Elegant Copper-Plate Engraving, representing a View of that Place. (The engraving, by Cornelius Tiebout after W. Barr, shows a small sailboat navigating the rapids, as viewed from "Horn's-Hook, on which a battery was erected by the Americans, at the commencement of the war, to defend the channel…").
	- HISTORY OF MARIA KITTLE: "An original and interesting letter, by the late Mrs. ANN E. BLEECKER, to her friend Miss. S. T. E. describing the suffering of Mr. Kittle's family, at Schochticook, in the French and English War…" (The first appearance in print of Bleecker's  epistolary novel and Indian captivity narrative, considered the first American fictional work to focus on Native Americans. Maria Kittle would not be published in book form until 1793, as part of The Posthumous Works. This is the first installment of the work (5 double-columned pages), which was subsequently continued over several issues of the magazine.
	- CONGRESSIONAL AFFAIRS. A Sketch of the Proceedings of the House of Representatives, including: Mr. [Elbridge] Gerry's report on the "catalogue of books necessary for the use of Congress, together with the expense thereof…" (the beginnings of the Library of Congress); the resolutions of the select committee to raise the duties on distilled spirits, molasses, Souchong and other black tea, coffee, nutmeg, and numerous other commodities; etc.
	- INTELLIGENCE: dispatches, letters and news from Oxford (balloon flight of "Mr. Sadler, the famous English aerostatist"), Stockbridge, Mass., Philadelphia, Boston, and elsewhere ("Sept. 20. The President's Portrait is finished by Trumbull, and a fine thing it is…"); etc.
	- "THE AMERICAN MUSE." Original poetry, including: "An Address to General Washington, on his Retirement at the Conclusion of the War.—By a Lady"; "Ode, sacred to the Memory of our great Franklin"; "Lines, wrapped round a Goose-Quil,… sent to a young Lady"; etc.
	- EXTRACTS from: An Account of the Pelew Islands; The right Constitution of a Commonwealth examined, from Dr. Adams's (Vice-President of the United States) Defence of the Constitution of Government of the United States of America; Navigations of the Ancient Normans: First Discovery of America; etc.
	- Hints on the Culture of Vines in America; read before the Burlington Society for promoting Agriculture and Domestic Manufactures, the 13th of April, 1790, by Robert Strettell Jones. 
	- Meteorological Observations, Promotions, Marriages, Deaths, and much more.

Contents evenly toned; repaired closed tear to one leaf, short edge-tear to another; otherwise clean and sound, complete and firmly bound in a handsome half-morocco binding with just a touch of darkening to the spine and edges.