The Cruise of the Mystery, and Other Poems

Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin and Company, 1888 Reprint. Soft cover, 16mo in "vegetable vellum" folded over cream card wraps, lacking original glassine, but now in a clear mylar protector, title in Gothic type font to front of wraps in red, surrounded by a neoclassical border. Printed at Riverside Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Printed on laid paper, iv,121pp. CONDITION: Very Good Minus. Parchment shows slight external soiling, offset to ffep from wraps. and there is a small (1/16 to 1/4 inch deep) water stain top edge not affecting the text or wraps. Offset to ffep. from wraps. Originally published in 1886 in an edition of 1,000 copies, this is a later re-print. (see BAL 19895). Inscribed to ffep. by the Appledore Island poet Celia Thaxter (1835-1894) to a regular correspondent in her old age, the ornithologist, author and sometime editor at Houghton Mifflin, Bradford Torrey (1843-1912). "While Celia was not well, she carried on a very interesting correspondence with Bradford Torrey, the authority on birds. She told him of all the kinds seen on the [Isles of] Shoals, and of their habits. She urged him to come to the Shoals the next summer. He was unable to do so, and so they never met, but for the remainder of her life Celia continued to write long and enthusiastic letters to him. ( R. Thaxter, "Sandpiper, the Life and Letters of Celia Thaxter," Marshall Jones, Francistown New Hampshire, 1963. p. 235.) Torrey is also listed as a significant writer in the early ecological studies, in J. Bilbro et al, "Writing the Environment in Nineteenth-Century American Literature: The Ecological Awareness of Early Scribes of Nature," Lexington Books, 2015, (p.213). He edited a volume of "The Works of Henry David Thoreau, " Vol. 2 1906. "Friends on the Shelf ,"(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1906) was another of his editorial efforts for the Boston publisher. Finally, his hometown of Weymouth, Mass. is the benficiary of the Bradford Torrey Bird Sanctuary. Overall, this is a very nice object featuring some of the poet's later works. BAL 8929. Ward and Hass, (Port Washington, New York, Kennikat Press, 1968) No. 71, p.29. . Signed and Inscribed by Thaxter to Bradford Torrey, dated 1889.. Soft Cover. Very Good Minus.