The Rifle, Axe, and Saddle-Bags, and other Lectures.: With a Preface, including a Life of the Author, by the Rev. T. Binney.

CHARLES KINGSLEY'S COPY OF A BOOK ABOUT AN AMERICAN CIRCUIT RIDER, WITH HIS NOTES

MILBURN, William Henry. The Rifle, Axe, and Saddle-Bags, and other Lectures. With a Preface, including a Life of the Author, by the Rev. T. Binney. [Illustrated]. Post 8vo, original gilt stamped green cloth (worn & moderately soiled; front hinge cracked at fold, lacking free half of front end paper), inserted frontispiece, pp. [24], 244, [4] ads + 3 tinted plates. London: Sampson, Low, Son & Co., 1857.

First English Edition; published in New York the same year with a different introduction, and without Binney's life of the author included here. Presentation copy, inscribed: "Revd. C. Kingsley with the Publisher's Compliments." Kingsley has written his name and address on front end paper, "Charles Kingsley Eversley Rectory," which has been scored through, but is easily read. Next to Thomas Moore's poem, The Bridge of Sighs, p. 111, Kingsley has written "This poem is one of the noblet sermons ever preached by man." He has made some notes on the front end-leaf, and marked passages that interested him on pages 116-163, including two lines in pencil on p. 145. Kingsley is well known as of a writer of such books as Westward Ho! and The Water Babies, but he was also a controversial Christian socialist and exponent of muscular Christianity. William Milburn became a frontier circuit rider when almost totally blind, often traveling alone, and he served as Chaplain of the United States Congress for a time. His lectures here include, The Symbols of Early Western Character and Civilization; Songs in the Night, or, The Triumphs of Genius over Blindness; An Hour's Talk about Women; and French Chivalry in the South-West. Sabin 48918.