Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling and the Sorrowing

Philadelphia: H.C. Peck & Theo. Bliss, 1861. Later edition (first published 1856). 12mo (18cm). Publisher's full morocco, elaborately embossed with gilt titles and matching gilt devices to front and rear boards; all edges gilt; 300pp; frontispiece, engraved extra-title and 4 inserted leaves of plates; 4pp publisher's catalog bound in at end of text. Mild overall rubbing, with some softness to leather at head and heel; top edge gilt slightly oxidized; still a sound, Very Good copy in a quite lovely mid-19th c. gift binding. Early pencil gift inscription to a Mary F. Sisson, dated 1854.

A religious and temperance miscellany, mostly short moral tales with a few verse works interspersed. T.S. Arthur (1809-1885) is best-remembered for his hugely popular temperance trace Ten Nights in A Bar-Room, and What I Saw There (1854), but he was an incredibly prolific writer, churning out more than 100 titles between 1840 and the early 1880s. For the current work, see WRIGHT II:150, recording one copy of an 1856 edition by the current publisher and another the same year from a Chicago publisher.