Search Results: Authors starting with P from 19th Century Rare Book and Photograph Shop

FIRST EDITION, FIRST PRINTING sheets of Common Sense, here with the third edition title page and prefatory leaf. Richard Gimbel s definitive study identifies points in every gathering distinguishing the three editions that Bell printed in early 1776. This copy of Common Sense contains all of the points of the first printing, save the two-leaf gathering [A]2 (title and preface). Bound in at the end is Paine s Large Additions to Common Sense, which Bell pirated from a competitor and offered separately for one shilling to buyers of Common Sense. Paine s Common Sense, published anonymously in January 1776, was the first vigorous attack on King George … and the first public appeal for an American Republic. It is not too much to say that the Declaration of Independence of July 4, 1776, was due more to Paine s Common Sense than to any other single piece of writing (Streeter). Born in England in 1737, Paine moved to London in 1774 where he met Benjamin Franklin, who encouraged him to emigrate to America.… Read More

4to. 24, [8], 23, [9] p. Recent marbled paper wrappers, printed label on upper wrapper. Title stained, lightly worn. Browning.
FIRST EDITION. This pamphlet was published in conjunction with "Reed's Plan of First Purchasers," a large and now rare landownership map, documenting the "First Purchasers" of Pennsylvania. The text includes copies of the original abstracts of communications from William Penn to the "first adventurers and purchasers in Pennsylvania," abstracts of the charter of the city, reasons why the plan of the city was altered by Benjamin Eastburn, an alphabetical list of the first purchasers, and the courses, distances and dates of surveys of all the lots in the city of Philadelphia. Reed prepared this valuable document to bolster his family's claims to land in the Philadelphia area.
Provenance: a succession of owners have signed the books, in this presumed order: "Andrew Cape His Book 1780 Market Street 10." — "Andrew Cape" and "Andrew Cape his book" likely a different… Read More

First edition of Poe's first published collection of tales, one of only 750 sets printed. Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque contains many of Poe's finest tales including "The Fall of the House of Usher" and "MS. Found in a Bottle."The publication of these twenty-five tales marked the culmination of Poe's long struggle to get his prose tales into book form. In 1833-34, Poe had failed to see into print his planned Tales of the Folio Club. Most of these tales, with additions were published as Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque. The title is derived from Sir Walter Scott's 1827 essay "On the Supernatural in Fictitious Composition: "the tales of the arabesque are the product of an intense imaginative effort and the tales of the grotesque tend toward satire or burlesque." In the preface to the collection, Poe defends himself from those critics who have charged him with 'Germanism' and gloom, writing, "If in many of my productions, terror has been the thesis, I maintain that terror is not of Germany,… Read More

Three volumes. 30 pp. Catalogue of American Poetry at end. Original purple muslin-backed boards, printed paper spine labels, untrimmed. Labels worn, one joint split, spines worn and repaired. Foxing.

First edition. This important work, which contains the first mention of Poe's work in a book, is the earliest bibliography of American poetry. This set includes the work of nearly 200 poets up to 1829, with Kettell supplying biographical sketches for each writer, ranging from Cotton Mather to Francis Scott Key, Washington Irving, and Sarah J. Hale. The Catalogue of American Poetry at the end lists "Tamerlane, and other poems, by a Bostonian, Boston, 1827"—the first mention of any work by Poe in a printed book. According to Roger Stoddard, this catalogue is the beginning of the bibliography of early American poetry.