The Harrison and Log Cabin Song Book (Columbus, OH: Whiting, 1840). 16mo. 108 pages. Bound in cloth and pictorial paper-covered boards. Binding good with edge wear and old script on cover. Contents VG, with lots of writing on flies.  $300

This songster features sixty-nine songs, including such hits as “Should Good Old Cider Be Despised,” “I Love the Rough Log Cabin,” “Sly Matty’s Face was Overcast,” and, who can forget, “The Hero Ploughman of North Bend.” On the front pastedown, “Joseph H. Geiger” declares: “To be preserved as a precious relic of noisy and happy days.” The front fly and the rear pastedown bear the ink stamp of A. H. Smythe who identifies himself as “the oldest U.S. bookseller (1876) Berkeley, CA.”.(Huh, he must have never heard of Leary’s or Brattle) with his signature and the date “xmas 1935.” (Did he sign and date every book that passed through his hands?) The back fly is probably missing. The other inscription on the rear pastedown reads: “The property of W. F. Griswold, Worthington [OH].” 

The Artist: A Monthly Lady’s Book (New York)

Vol. 1, No. 1 (September 1842) to Vol. 2, No. 10 (June 1843), comprising ten issues, a complete run. Octavo. Bound in period brown leather and marbled boards. Binding VG, with scuffing to leather and wear to edges and hinges. Contents VG, with foxing. One plate excised from the February 1843 issue. $750

Though the Artist, despite its name, was intended to compete with Godey’s and Peterson’s in the ladies fashion category, publisher Quarré announced in his opening message, “The engravings, drawings and paintings, with which ‘The Artist ’will be adorned, are executed by a process hitherto unknown, and by it we shall be enabled to represent Flowers, with their own brilliant tints; Landscapes with the joyous verdure of Spring, and Portraits of young and lovely women, in whose complexions will be blended the rose and lily. Avoiding the ordinary mode of clothing every subject in ‘customary suits of solemn black,’ our embellishments will present the gladsome hues of nature, the lively coloring of flowers, of birds, and of fashionable costumes.” Each issue carried three plates, one a colored fashion plate, one an embossed plate usually a colored floral, and one a colored landscape or black and white engraving. Some may have been hand-colored but many are produced in a method or methods we have never seen before or can label. 

C. G. Crehen. Design of the National Washington Monument to be Erected in the City of Washington. (New York: Wm. Endicott & Co., [1850]). Tinted lithograph. 30” x 21”. VG, wear and grime to extreme margins, a few surface smudges. $1,200

This handsome print, issued to solicit contributions to the Washington Monument building fund, depicts Robert Mills’ original design, including a terrace and pantheon around the base that were never built. The caption is flanked by two small floor plans, labeled “Plan of the Terrace,” and “Plan of the Pantheon.” Other Washington D.C. landmarks are visible in the background of the image, including the Smithsonian Castle, the Capitol, etc. At the bottom of the print in a facsimile of handwriting are the words, “Earnestly recommended to the favor of our Countrymen” and beneath that line facsimile signatures of Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, James K. Polk, George Mifflin Dallas, John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, Albert Gallatin, and Daniel Webster. There are three versions of this broadside, this being the largest. Worldcat lists four institutional holdings of this example.

The Old Guard (New York) Vol. 1, No. 1 (January 1863) to Vol. 5, No. 12 (December 1867), comprising 57 issues (several are combined monthly issues), bound in five volumes. Octavos. Vols. 1 and 2 in the black cloth publisher’s binding, with wear to top and bottom of spine and tips. Vols. 3 through 5 in mismatching half-leather and marbled boards, with generalized rubbing all around. Contents VG, with the usual foxing. $1,250

The Old Guard was the only consistently anti-Lincoln Copperhead publication of the Civil War. It began erratic publication in 1862, but it was suppressed by the Federal Government during a general crackdown on the press in 1862. When those restrictions were eased at the end of the year, editor Chauncey Burr resumed publication in January of 1863. (The first two numbers of the 1863 volume are identified as Vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2. But then Burr decided to consider the January 1863 issue the true first issue of volume 1, so the March issue bears the Vol. 1, No. 3 designation, subsequent issues are numbered accordingly, and most of the editorial matter from the first (suppressed) volume is reprinted in the latter half of the 1863 volume.) These two Civil War volumes bristle with astounding, angry diatribes against the war effort in general, and abolitionism and Lincoln in particular. Mott tells us, “The Old Guard defended slavery and the right of secession, attacked President Lincoln violently in every number, and urged the cessation of the war. It was, it claimed ‘the only magazine published in the United States which is devoted to the fearless and uncompromising exposure of the monstrous crimes and frauds of the party in power.'” Each volume is illustrated with engravings of anti-Lincoln political leaders (eight in volume 1, ten in volume 2). We hear a good deal about the opposition Lincoln faced within the North during the Civil War, but that opposition was, in fact, poorly organized and largely inarticulate. The press, by and large, supported the Union effort, even while it argued over tactics. These volumes then constitute an extraordinary historical document, preserving a largely unrecorded point-of-view. Scarce and desirable.  

The Pioneer Cabin of the Yo-Semite Valley (New York: Currier and Ives, c. 1870) Hand-colored lithograph. 11” x 15”. VG, bright coloring, uniform toning. $500

This inviting image of what was surely a tough existence depicts a man sitting with his dog in front of a small, neat cabin surrounded by the majestic rock walls and snowy peaks of Yosemite Valley. While this is not a rare print, oddly enough, it does not appear in Worldcat, though we know that the Library  of Congress and the Bancroft Library at the University of California Berkeley own copies of it. 

American Art Review (Boston)

Vol. 2, No. 1 (November 1880) to Vol. 2, No. 12 (October 1881). Comprising twelve issues, the final volume of only two, bound by the publisher in two volumes of ornately tooled full leather. Folios. Bindings VG, with scuffing to edges and hinges. The front hinge to the second volume is sound, but starting. Contents near fine. Limited to 500 copies, this is #107, signed by Estes and Laurent, the publishers. $500

The American Art Review was the most ambitious art magazine published in America up to that time. The run includes more than 75 full-page plates of which 21 are original etchings by William Merritt Chase, Frederick S. Church (neither featured in Volume 1), Stephen Parrish, Thomas Moran, Peter Moran, and others. Another highlight is the half-dozen installments of editor Koehler’s “The Works of American Etchers.” The Review also featured a wide array of art news (American and European), reviews of exhibitions, club notes, and other information valuable to the art professional. A beautiful periodical that we have not offered in many years and have never seen in the deluxe large paper edition.

Will Bradley, designer and printer. Edward Fitzgerald. Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, the Astronomer. (Springfield, MA: Wayside Press, 1897). 12mo. Near fine, with minor rubbing to tips and slight loss to head and toe of the fragile paper spine.  $1,000

This is a possibly unique pre-press run of this lovely Bradley work, inscribed by Bradley to his early champion, Chauncey Williams, of the Chicago publishing firm of Way and Williams. The inscription reads; “To Mr. C. L. Williams with the kind regards of Will Bradley, September 1897.” This copy differs from others on the market because the cover design is in black, not green, and the title page is lacking the R. H. Russell imprint. 

Modern Horse Goods and Stable Fittings. (Philadelphia: John Wanamaker, c. 1900). Oblong octavo. Covers fair, with soiling to front and back and loss to back. Spine reinforced. Contents VG, nibbling to lower margin of last twenty pages, without loss. 192 pages. $200

The fully illustrated catalog features everything for the horse and horseman, from axle grease, blankets, bridles, brushes, combs, crops, and feed bags, to halters, harnesses, reins, robes, saddles, spurs, and whips. Included with the catalog are eleven pieces of ephemera running from single sheets to illustrated pamphlets highlighting specific items for sale in the catalog proper.