Among the Isles of Shoals [SIGNED]

New York and Cambridge, Mass.: Houghton, Mifflin and Company. Printed at the Riverside Press, 1891 ** Signed by Author on title page: "Celia Thaxter August 4th, 1891. ** Hard cover, 12mo ( measuring 4 x 6 inches), in publisher's green cloth, design in black to top board and gold lettering to spine. Glazed black end papers, red stain to edge of text block. Frontispiece illustration with tissue guard, title page printed black and red, 184 pp. With four black and white engraved illustrations. Condition: Good. Some wear/marks to covers and corners. Owner's signature, dated 1891, on title page in black ink. American poet and essayist, Celia Laighton Thaxter (1835-1894) was famous for her life-long association with the Isles of Shoals: a group of islands nine miles east, straddling the Maine/New Hampshire seacoast. Among the writers who visited her: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, John Whittier and Sarah Orne Jewett. Artists William Morris Hunt and Childe Hassam would paint views of ocean and her garden, while staying at the family's Appledore Hotel. The book relates the islands' history, and describes the character of New England island life; the perils of shipwreck, the effects of isolation on the community's behavior. Other times the prose is poetic and meditative, reflecting the natural beauty she sees all around her. A wonderful, rich read in a (scarce) signed edition.. Signed by Author. Fifteenth Edition. Hard Cover. Good.