Sea-Side Walks of a Naturalist with His Children. Illustrated with eight coloured plates and numerous wood engravings

London: Groombridge and Sons, 1870. First edition.

1870 LITTLE CHILDREN'S BOOK WITH FINE COLOR PLATES, COPY OF AMERICAN STEEL AND SHIPPING MAGNATE.

7 inches tall hardcover, 3/4 blue calf and cloth binding, spine with raised bands, gilt title and compartments, top edge gilt, marbled endpapers, decorative armorial bookplate of James Augustine Farrell to front paste-down, i-vi, 154 pp, 8 chromolithographic plates, wood engravings throughout text. Wear to spine edges and corners, text and plates unmarked, clean and bright, very good in custom archival mylar cover.

REVEREND WILLIAM HOUGHTON (1828–1895) was an English naturalist and clergyman, noted for being the author of British Fresh-Water Fishes. Houghton was rector of Preston on the Weald Moors in Shropshire. A serious naturalist, he became a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London. To produce his major work, Houghton studied fish specimens at the British Museum.

PROVENANCE: JAMES AUGUSTINE FARRELL (1863 – 1943) was president of US Steel from 1911 to 1932. A major business figure of his era, Farrell expanded US Steel by a factor of five during his presidency, turning it into America's first billion-dollar company. Farrell was also a champion and early pioneer of export markets, who massively expanded US steel exports to the world. He was the son of a ship captain and never lost his interest in maritime affairs and in 1910 established the Isthmian Steamship Company, a subsidiary of US Steel. 1,500 people attended his funeral mass at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola on March 30, 1943, in Manhattan, and Farrell, Pennsylvania, is named after him.