A Week On The Concord And Merrimack Rivers
by Thoreau, Henry David
- Used
- Hardcover
- first
- Condition
- See description
- Seller
-
Deep River, Connecticut, United States
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
Boston and Cambridge: James Munroe And Company, 1849. First Edition. First and only Printing Very good- in its original, light brown, wavy cloth covered boards blind stamped with a five-rule border on both boards. This copy has been professionally rebacked preserving the majority of the original spine strip and retaining the original end sheets. A small octavo of 7 13/16 by 4 3/4 inches with the cloth worn through at the fore edges of the boards and in sections along the upper and lower edges of the boards. The front hinge is starting and there are occasional marginal pencil marks in the text. Heavy erasures of the front and rear most end sheets have also caused two small holes in those pages. There is a minor tanning to the interior of the facing pages 112 and 113 perhaps from two small leaves having been pressed within the book. Lastly, the page announcing the imminent publication of Walden is missing a 1 1/2 inch chip from its upper fore corner. That chip has no impact on the printed text on that page. 413 pages of text followed by a one page announcement stating Walden "will soon be published". It is important to note that due to a printer's error the last three lines of page 396 are missing. Those lines have been written out in pencil perhaps by the author or the author's sister as indicated in both BAL and Borst. The printer's errors on page 120 and 139 have not been either noted or corrected. This was Thoreau's first book, which he had to pay for to get published. Unfortunately, it did not sell well. From bibliographic sources, we infer that this copy is most likely one of the 256 bound, unsold copies returned to Thoreau in October 1853 by the publisher. In 1862 Ticknor and Fields purchased 145 bound copies and the 450 unbound sheets from Thoreau. During the intervening years Thoreau either gave away or sold 111 of the bound copies. In that time Thoreau discovered the missing lines on page 396. In some of those bound copies either Thoreau or his sister, Sophia Thoreau, and an unknown third individual added the missing lines on the lower portion of that page in pencil. Expert opinion indicates that this handwriting is not that of either Thoreau or his sister. (BAL 20104; Borst A1.1.a1; Howes T-220)
Synopsis
Originally published: 1849. "The definitive text as approved by the Center for Editions of American Authors of the Modern Language Association of America"--Cover, p. [4]. Includes index.
Reviews
(Log in or Create an Account first!)
Details
- Bookseller
- Town's End Books (US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- TB29389
- Title
- A Week On The Concord And Merrimack Rivers
- Author
- Thoreau, Henry David
- Book Condition
- Used
- Edition
- First Edition
- Binding
- Hardcover
- Publisher
- James Munroe And Company
- Place of Publication
- Boston and Cambridge
- Date Published
- 1849
Terms of Sale
Town's End Books
30 day return guarantee, with full refund including shipping costs for up to 30 days after delivery if an item arrives misdescribed or damaged.
About the Seller
Town's End Books
Biblio member since 2009
Deep River, Connecticut
About Town's End Books
We purchase and sell only collectible first editions in a number of fields all focused on Americana. We are primarily mail order sellers; however, we are open by appointment and welcome visits from customers.
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- First Edition
- In book collecting, the first edition is the earliest published form of a book. A book may have more than one first edition in...
- Cloth
- "Cloth-bound" generally refers to a hardcover book with cloth covering the outside of the book covers. The cloth is stretched...
- BAL
- Bibliography of American Literature (commonly abbreviated as BAL in descriptions) is the quintessential reference work for any...
- Edges
- The collective of the top, fore and bottom edges of the text block of the book, being that part of the edges of the pages of a...
- Leaves
- Very generally, "leaves" refers to the pages of a book, as in the common phrase, "loose-leaf pages." A leaf is a single sheet...
- Erasures
- Erasures indicates marks where someone has removed bits of text or content from a book. In Book Arts, erasures can also mean a...
- Octavo
- Another of the terms referring to page or book size, octavo refers to a standard printer's sheet folded four times, producing...
- Hinge
- The portion of the book closest to the spine that allows the book to be opened and closed.
- Unbound
- A book or pamphlet which does not have a covering binding, sometimes by original design, sometimes used to describe a book in...
- Rebacked
- having had the material covering the spine replaced. ...
- Spine Strip
- The material covering the spine, or the rear portion of the outside of a book.