Sally Wister's Journal: A True Narrative

Philadelphia: Ferris & Leach, 1902. First edition. Hardcover. Very good. With the long secondary subtitle of "Being a Quaker Maiden's Account of her Experiences with Officers of the Continental Army-1777-1778." Inscribed in pencil on the front fee endpaper: "Amos, from Dan.* Xmas 1902 With the compliments of her relative. *Owen Wister." It appears the entire inscription is in Owen Wister's hand, that he wrote it as a gift inscription to be given by a friend to another friend.  Perhaps unique signed by Wister, and an uncommon book in general with only one other copy available at the time of this writing. With the bookplate on the pastedown of Amos Tuck French, a prominent banker, director fo he Northern Pacific Railway, and New York society man.

Owen Wister is duly famous as the author of The Virginian, the seminal Western. Sally Wister (1761-1804) is known for this journal, her firsthand nine-month account of living in the countryside near Philadelphia while it was occupied by the British during the American Revolution (see the Museum of the American Revolution's description of the book) . The journal is epistolary, in the form of letters to a friend (unsent as they would not reach her during the war). The family had fled Philadelphia as it was on the verge of occupation. While no skirmishes occurred at her farm, soldiers and prominent officers of the Continental Army, stayed with her and these interactions are documented, as well as the delights and mundanities of her daily life. Her letters were 48 pages in all; they remained in the Wister house until 1830 and weren't published in full until this volume. 

Yellow cloth with blue illustration and lettering, red accents to the soldier on then spine. Roughcut pages. A very good copy with soiling/mottling to yellow cloth. Spine slightly clocked and spine cloth slightly rumpled  Light foxing/browning to rear of half-title page only and title page, probably due to contact with the glossy frontis,, otherwise pages are clean. A unique copy with Owen Wister's signature and declaration of his relationship to this early other Wister.