1877 · Boston
by Jewett, Sarah Orne
Boston: James R. Osgood, 1877. Small octavo. Original medium brown cloth, decorated in black and gilt. Title margin ruled in red and black. Inner hinges cracked but sewing remains sound, spine a shade darkened, head and toe of spine frayed, endsheet partially cracked at gutter, with small chip in fore-edge, first blank excised; just a sound copy. First edition of the author's first book. The first printing (made 1 March and listed in PW on 14 April) consisted of 1280 copies, and a second printing of five hundred copies was made on 9 May. BAL was unable to definitively differentiate between the first two printings, but notes an alteration at 65:16 which may have been made in either the second or third printing; for the record, this copy has the earliest form of that line. BAL 10871. WRIGHT III:2975. (Inventory #: WRCLIT57417)