first edition
1909 · Cleveland, Ohio
by Merrick, George Byron
Cleveland, Ohio: The Arthur H. Clark Company, 1909. First Edition. Very good in blue, ribbed cloth covered boards with gold text stamping on the spine and with the top edge of the spine gilt. A small quarto measuring 9 1/2 by 6 1/4 inches with light rubbing and wear to the cloth at the head and heel of the spine and to the tips of the boards. There is an attractive prior owner's engraved book plate on the front paste down. Without a dust jacket. One of only 1,276 copies printed. Although unstated, this title is part of the American Waterway Series I. 303 pages including an index, appendices and text. Illustrated with a photographic frontispiece,maps and reproductions of 23 early photographs. Howes considers this title "quite scarce". In an article in the April, 1909 American Historical Review, James K. Hosmer stated that there is "no better account, from the inside, of steamboating." And, the revised bibliography by Robert A. Clark and Patrick J. Brunet of The Arthur H. Clark Company publications says of this title: "The recollections of Merrick are extremely divers, and include information touching on a variety of subjects, from economic and industrial to historical and ethnological." (Howes M539; Clark & Brunet 186; Graff 2756) (Inventory #: TB29685)