The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

Beautiful navy-blue boards with gold gilt text on the cover and spine. The spine has a slight slant and slight wear at the top and bottom of the back strip, but title is bright and readable. There is little edge wear to the front or rear boards, but the corners are all bumped with a tiny bit of wear at the tips. The spine is firmly attached to the end papers with no cracking to the hinges. Text block is solid but is of a low-quality paper that is thin and shows substantial darkening at the page edges. A torn bookseller stamp is attached to the front endpaper, and with a previous owner name and address on the front free endpaper. Surprisingly, the interior pages are clean with no chips, tears, or other previous owner marks. A more difficult title to find from this publisher.

John B. Alden was a New York publisher from 1879 to 1908 who sold cheap books direct to customers rather than to bookstores, which ultimately led for many of his enterprises to end in bankruptcy. Often associated with the American Book Exchange, the firm began trading in the 1870's and went into receivership in 1881. This book would be an example of one of his "cheap books" but it has luckily managed to survive for well over 100 years.