The Boston Book

Being Specimens of Metropolitan Literature

edited by B.B. Thatcher 

First edition.  Boston:  Light & Stearns, 1837  

Hardback is overall in VERY GOOD- condition.

• Dark green covers with blind stamped ornament and gilt title to spine. 
• Boards show some smudges, scuffing, edgewear.  Corners are bumped, worn, with exposed board.  See photos.  
• Spine has gilt text and is sunned with crushed ends.  See photos.
• Binding is fragile, with some cracking at front cover, stitches visible at many openings.  See photos. 
• Pastedowns and feps have some light foxing, staining, writing, owner's marks.
• Engraved Title page illustration has intact tissue guard, lightly foxed.  
• Interior exhibits scattered moderate foxing and staining.  See photos.  
• Inside pages are free of writing and intentional marks.
• Text block edges have a few marks. 
• PS2026.0812

360 pages. 4.5 x 7.25 inches

First edition.  Publisher's dark green pebbled cloth with blind stamped ornament, gilt title to spine.  Features an engraved title page vignette depicting the three hills of Boston.  This is the second issue of The Boston Book, a reader's anthology featuring prose and poetry written by notable local authors of the era.  Boards show wear especially to corners, with sunning at the spine.  Binding is intact, with some signs of cracking, visible stitches.  Interior shows sporadic foxing.  Condition is overall Very Good Minus.

Edited by Benjamin Bussey Thatcher, this volume contains writings by John Quincy Adams, Daniel Webster, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., John Greenleaf Whittier, Charles Sprague, Sarah Josepha Hale ("Mary Had a Little Lamb" creator), Edward Everett, Richard Henry Dana (author of "Two Years Before the Mast"), and many more Boston authors.  As the Preface states, the book is a "compilation of specimens of the modern literature of the Metropolis of the North."

The beautifully inked inscription on the front endpaper reads, "Mrs. Clarissa S. Hutchinson, presented by her Son Alexander."  Clarissa Sage Hutchinson (1784-1844) was married to Titus Hutchinson (1771-1857), a lawyer, politician, judge and member of the Liberty Party in Vermont.  The youngest of their six children was Alexander (1816-1850), who gave this book to his mother when he was twenty-one. 

Please see photos. More photos available upon request.

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