EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE; Being Sketches of People in Europe

New York: Harper & Brothers, 1858. 12mo. 276 pages, plus [4] pages publisher's ads at rear. Original brown cloth, stamped in gilt on spine, and with gilt and blind rules on covers; yellow-coated endpapers. [19.4 cm.] Good only. Head of spine chipped to headband; shallow chip to cloth at base of spine and exposed paper colored to match cloth; wear to hinges and corners; tiny hole to rear hinge; some faint spotting to boards. Early owner's lightly penciled inscription on front endpapers: "Annie H. Stephens, Baltimore, Sept. 27, 1863." Corner chip to front free endpaper. Moderate foxing to title. Perhaps two dozen other pages similarly affected; the rest with only light scattered foxing. Slight wrinkle to some leaves along gutters. Mesh starting to show between two leaves, but signatures holding well and binding otherwise sound. FIRST EDITION. The author's third book, a diverting account of his travels in Italy, Austria, and France. Much of the work is devoted to De Forest's effort to find relief from his health problems by seeking the water cure in the spas of Graefenberg (in present day Czechoslovakia) and Divonne (in eastern France). There he "found eccentric characters. The water sanitariums of Europe were apparently among the habitats of quaint humanity and ... De Forest wittily captured some of these human oddities." --Light, "John William De Forest," p. 45. One chapter describes other unusual treatments he encountered in Graefenberg, including the "curd cure," the "straw cure," and the "wine cure," and another chapter discusses an experience with Mesmerism in Divonne. There is also a narrative of life in Florence, where De Forest spent a long, pleasurable sojourn, and descriptions of his visits to Venice, Rome, and Paris. In Florence, "he frequented the best restaurants, listened to Verdi's music, attempted to translate `The House of the Seven Gables' into Italian, and collected tales of Italian religious superstitions. A stay in Paris excited no rhapsodies, but provoked some Yankee satire from this early innocent abroad." --Gargano, "Critical Essays on John William De Forest," p. 7. Smith, "American Travelers Abroad," D35. BAL 4602.