LONGFELLOW, HENRY WADSWORTH | Two First Editions

The Property of a Gentleman

LONGFELLOW, HENRY WADSWORTH

Two First Editions 

The Courtship of Miles Standish, and Other Poems. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1858. 8vo (4 1/2 x 7 1/4 in.; 115 x 185 mm). Publisher's advertisements dated October 1858 at end; minor toning, a few stray spots. Original brown cloth, covers ruled and decoratively stamped in blind, gilt lettering to spine, brown coated endpapers; minute repair to head of spine, advertisement for Waverley novels tipped on to front free endpaper. First edition, first printing. BAL 12122 — The New England Tragedies. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1868. 12mo (4 3/8 x 6 7/8 in.; 114 x 174 mm). Minor toning. Original full green cloth (BAL binding “A”), covers ruled in blind, upper cover and spine gilt lettered, brown coated endpapers; slight rubbing to head of spine. In custom red and brown linen clamshell case. First edition, first printing, Oliver Wendell Holmes' copy. BAL 12150. Oliver Wendell Holmes (“Chambered Nautilus” bookplate to front pastedown.

Group lots not subject to return.

Holmes and Longfellow were friends—indeed, the Fireside Poets were, in fact, cousins as well. Holmes, a great admirer of Longfellow's, regarded him as one who "wins and warms ... kindles, softens, cheers [and] calms the wildest woe and stays the bitterest tears!"

The present volume bears the bookplate of Holmes, which features the chambered nautilus. A polymath who was both a successful novelist and served as Dean of Harvard Medical School during his lifetime, Holmes felt that the nautilus was an excellent metaphor for personal or institutional progress, growth, survival, and adaptability. He immortalised the organism through his own verse, and here the image is accompanied by the motto per ampliora ad altiora (“through greater breadth to greater depth”).

A wonderful association copy