One Hundred Rare Americanum

c atalogue 300 One Hundred rare americanum william reese co. 409 t empl e st r ee t ne w h av en, connecticut 06511 203/789·8081 his catalogue, the 300th issued by this firm, comes thirty-three years after Tmy first as William Reese Company in February 1980. Prior to that I had been a rare book dealer in other formats for five years. A run of Reese Company catalogues now occupies more than ten feet of shelf; the books, manuscripts, and other material which have passed through our hands would fill a warehouse. In all of this I have been ably aided by Terry Halladay, Leslie Warner, Pat Godek, Joe Cretella, Nick Aretakis, Leslie Arthur, Teri Osborn, Siobhan Geist, and Cliff Sahlin, as well as a number of alumni now working in the trade or in libraries. I won’t attempt to enumerate the items listed herein; they speak for themselves. While this is something of a “high spot” catalogue, I’ve made no special effort to reserve material for it—it’s what’s in stock, in the Americana section of our business. Hopefully the reader will find some of these items interesting and tempting. In 1972, when I was first involved with rare books, I wrote various dealers asking for catalogues. One of these was the then dean of the Texas book trade, William Morrison, of Waco. In return I received a copy of his catalogue 300, simply entitled, “Thank you, Lord.” Exactly. William Reese New Haven, February 2013 Visit our website at www.reeseco.com for some of our catalogues and bulletins, and a portion of our stock. terms Material herein is offered subject to prior sale. All items are as described and are considered to be on approval. Notice of return must be given within ten days unless specific arrangements are made. Connecticut residents must be billed state sales tax. Postage and insurance charges are billed to all nonprepaid domestic orders. Overseas orders are sent by air unless otherwise requested, with full postage charges billed at our discretion. Payment by check, wire transfer or bank draft is preferred, but may also be made by MasterCard or Visa. William Reese Company 409 Temple Street New Haven, Connecticut 06511 Phone: (203) 789-8081 Fax: (203) 865-7653 E-mail: [email protected] Front cover: 20. Catesby: The Natural History of Carolina, Florida . London. 1771. Rear cover: 18. Bauman: To His Excellency Genl. Washington. Philadelphia. 1782. A Classic of Early American Natural History 1. Abbot, John, and Sir James Edward Smith: THe NATURAL HiSTOrY OF THe RARER LePIDOPTEROuS INSECTS OF GeOrGIA. INCLUDING THEIR SYSTEMATIC cHARACTERS, THe PARTICULARS OF THEIR SeVERAL METAMOrPHOSeS, AND THe PLANTS On WHICH THeY FEED. cOLLECTED FrOm THe OBSERVaTiOnS OF MR JOHn aBBOT, MANY YEARS RESIDENT IN THaT cOUNTrY, BY JAMES EDWARD SMITH. London: Printed by T. Bens- ley for J. Edwards, Cadell and Davies and J. White, 1797 [text watermarked 1794; plates watermarked 1817–1821]. Two volumes. Parallel titles and text in French and English. 104 handcolored engraved plates by John Harris after Abbot, some heightened with gum-arabic. Folio. Expertly bound to style in half calf over contemporary marbled paper covered boards, spines gilt extra, leather labels stamped in gilt. Fine. A fine copy of John Abbot’s masterpiece: the earliest illustrated monograph devoted to the butterflies and moths of North America. John Abbot was one of the most important and prolific of the early American natural history artists. Born in London in 1751, Abbot developed his interest in natural history and drawing as a child. His curiosity about the natural world was encouraged by his parents, who were relatively wealthy (at one time the family library included copies of Mark Catesby’s Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands as well as George Edwards’ Natural History of Uncommon Birds and Gleanings of Natural History). Having received sponsorship from the Royal Society of London and collectors Thomas Martyn and Dru Drury, Abbot sailed for Virginia in July 1773, with orders for both actual specimens and drawings of the local insects. For the next two years he continued to collect and paint, sending home three insect collections, although only one arrived safely. The loss of these two valuable collections at sea together with the worry over political unrest in Virginia led Abbot to move to Georgia. He settled in St. George Parish (later Burke County), Georgia in December 1775. Abbot travelled widely throughout Georgia devoting his time to the study of the natural flora and fauna. The constant flow of specimen collections and watercolors of insects, and later of birds, ensured that his name became known to many of the foremost natural scientists and collectors of the day, both in America and Europe. Sir James Edward Smith, co-founder and first president of the Linnaean Society of Lon- don, recognized Abbot’s talents, and responded enthusiastically to Abbot’s desire to publish an illustrated work on the butterflies and moths of Georgia, agreeing to edit the work for Abbot. Smith, in the preface to the present work, praised Abbot highly as the first author “since the celebrated Merian,” to illustrate and describe the lepidop- tera of the American continent scientifically, including both representations of the cat- erpillars and “the plants on which each insect chiefly feeds.” The work is also valuable for the numerous firsthand comments and observations that Abbot has added. Like the Botfield copy, this copy was issued circa 1822, with the plates on J. Whatman Tur- key Mills wove paper. Abbot’s watercolors are among the finest natural history illustrations ever made: ele- gant and scientifically accurate, they rank with those of his famous contemporaries, William Bartram and Alexander Wilson. William Swainson described Abbot as one of the United States’ most important natural history artists, “a most assiduous collector, and an admirable draftsman of insects. [This] work is one of the most beautiful that this or any other country can boast of” (quoted by Sabin). ARNOLD ARBORETUM, p. 27. BM (NH) I, p. 2l. DUNTHORNE 287. Pamela Gilbert, John Abbot Birds, Butterflies and Other Wonders (London: Natural History Museum, 1998). NISSEN (ZBI) 2. Vivian Rogers-Price, John Abbot in Georgia: The Vision of a Naturalist Artist (Madison, Ga.: Madison-Morgan Cultural Center, 1983). SABIN 25. $67,500. A Presentation Copy of the Greatest Rarity of Presidential Books: “I was very much pleased with the perusal . .”—George Washington 2. [Adams, John]: LeTTerS. [London. 1786]. [4], 74pp., printed on thick paper. Half title only, as issued. Contemporary straight-grained red morocco with boards, spine, edges, and dentelles all elaborately gilt. Light shelf wear and rubbing, else fine. A presentation copy of a great rarity, the privately printed, true first edition of John Adams’ Twenty-six Letters . , in which the founder sets forth his views on the nature of the American Revolution, the qualities of the American character, and the potential of the United States after the Revolution. We are able to locate only six other copies of this rare, privately-printed edition. This is by far the greatest rarity of Presidential books, many times rarer than the privately printed edition of Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia, and arguably more important as a political statement of one of the most important founders and second president. In many ways, John Adams’ Letters bears striking similarities to Jefferson’s Notes. They are both early and important works from founding fathers and future presidents of the United States. Jefferson’s Notes also had its origins in a series of queries from a prominent European, curious about the United States and the American character. Jefferson’s work was also privately published, appearing first in a French edition the year before Adams commissioned this printing of his Letters. Both Jefferson and Adams were initially intent on not having the work widely circulated, and Adams writes in the preface of the present work that “these papers are now printed, in order to pre- serve them; but by no means to be made public, for the present.” Both works would go on to be published and were very popular in their own day, though the privately printed editions are superlatively rare. The most important similarity between the two books, however, is in their content and in what they reveal about their authors. Both works show their authors attempting to describe the material qualities of their nation, its resources and potential for growth, and the characteristics of the “American.” Adams presented this copy to his cousin, Ward Nicholas Boylston (1749–1828), as indicated by a manuscript note on the half title reading: “Presented to W. N. Boylston by his affectionate friend the author.” This copy is beautifully bound in red straight- grained morocco, tooled in gilt on the boards and the spine, presumably bound by Boylston to signify it as a special copy. Born in Boston, Boylston spent some twenty- five years in London, engaged in various lines of trade, before returning to the United States in 1800 and settling in Princeton. He endowed a chair at Harvard in Rhetoric and Oratory, with the condition that John Quincy Adams would be installed as professor. John Adams arrived in the Netherlands in July 1780, sent there to explore the pos- sibility of financial assistance from the Dutch Republic to the American cause. He quickly acquainted himself with several of the prominent citizens, including Hendrik Calkoen, a leader in Amsterdam’s legal community. Calkoen was sympathetic to the American cause and saw the American rebellion against the British as analogous to the Dutch revolt against Spanish rule.

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