A Doctor of the Old School

First published in 1895, this 1897 edition has hardbound light green cloth boards with a vine decoration in light and dark green with matching title in light green. The spine has title and author in light green as well as a pharmacy pestle and mortar. The spine is worn at the top and bottom of the back strip and the boards have minimal fading along the top and bottom of the boards. Boards are otherwise very nice without blemishes but the corners all show slight wear and bumping. Spine is straight, firmly attached to the text block, with no cracking to the endpapers. Text block is solid with all pages firmly attached. Slight age tanning throughout. All interior pages are clean with no tears, cracks, or previous owner marks. Filled with full page black and white illustrations. Ian Maclaren (1850 – 1907) is the pen name for John Watson a minister of the Free Church of Scotland. He began his career in 1874 as an assistant minister in the Free Church of Scotland at the Edinburgh Barclay Church. Maclaren's first stories of rural Scottish life achieved extraordinary popularity. In 1896 he was the Lyman Beecher lecturer at Yale University and in 1900 he was moderator of the synod of the English Presbyterian Church. While traveling in the United States he died from blood poisoning, following a bout of tonsillitis at Mount Pleasant, Iowa. His body was returned to England and he is buried in Smithdown Cemetery in Liverpool. Frederick Charles Gordon (1856 – 1924) was a Canadian born illustrator that moved to New York in 1886 for further art training as the Art Students League. He became a staff artist for "Century" magazine and created some covers for "The Outlook" magazine. Gordon also illustrated books by authors such as Clara D. Pierson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Ian Maclaren. In 1908 he moved to Westfield, New Jersey where he served as mayor for five years (1916 – 1921). He died of a heart attack in 1924.