A Wonder Book for Boys and Girls

Boston: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, 1852. First Edition. First printing of 3,000 copies, with “lifed” for “lifted” on page 21, line 3, but this is no ordinary copy of the 1st printing. It’s in the publisher’s deluxe gift binding (likely less than 10% of the total first printing run), easily identified by the oval design on the front cover being in gilt, but also the gilt decorations, and the gilt edges, and only a small fraction of the 1st edition was issued in this binding. Slightest rubs to spine tips and corners, else in fine, fresh condition, exceptional quality for this 1st printing when it’s in this binding. Engraved frontispiece by Hobart and Robbins (who did Uncle Tom’s Cabin the same year) and 6 plates by Baker from designs by Billings. Half morocco case. Provenance: Ex–Frank Maier. Ex–the great Frank Hogan, at the pinnacle of antiquarian ancestry, and among the paramount libraries ever auctioned (1945). Ref: Clark, A 18.1.a. BAL, 7606. Blanck, Peter Parley to Penrod, page 6. For 5 years Hawthorne had pondered the idea of removing the starch from ancient fables, but when he decided to actually do it, he wrote A Wonder Book in only 8 weeks. He was at the peak of his powers, with all his magnificent style available, and he was under the spell of his neighbor, and at the time inseparable friend, Herman Melville, who was busily writing Moby–Dick (Moby is dedicated to Hawthorne and the nudges of each author on the other are evident in both books).  Hawthorne’s was a revolutionary re–sculpting of the Greek myths, a de–marbleizing of the Olympian gods, goddesses and heroes, where everyone’s a deity and no one cleans the fireplace, and in it he recast the immortals in a style suitable for young adults.  In his Preface, he wrote:

“Children possess an unestimated sensitivity to whatever is deep or high, in imagination or feeling, so long as it is simple, likewise. It is only the artificial and the complex that bewilders them.” –the last line of the Preface’s wonderful last paragraph

The 6 stories are: The Gorgon’s Head (Perseus and Medusa), The Golden Touch (King Midas), The Paradise of Children (Pandora and her box), The Three Golden Apples (Hercules, Atlas, and the Hesperides’ orchard), The Miraculous Pitcher (the kindness of Baucis and Philemon to 2 strangers, Zeus and Hermes in disguise), and The Chimæra (Bellerophon taming Pegasus and killing the monster).