New York: Charles B. Richardson, 1860. Item #1575

4to. 235 x 185 mm., [9 ⅜ x 7 ⅜ inches]. [i]-lxiv pp. With a copper engraving of Irving, etched by Jas D. Smillie from a sketch by F. O. C. Darley, and a reproduction of a manuscript page written by him inserted on a preliminary sheet. Grey cloth with bead grain and two blindstamped triple borders that cross to form squares at the corners; title in gilt on the upper cover; blindstamped decorations on the spine; text set in double-columns. Moderate fading on the spine and along the edges of the covers; corners lightly bumped; substantial foxing on the illustrated sheet which has the gutter cracked between the two leaves. With faults, still a rather attractive slim volume.

First Edition. Published as a tribute to the celebrated American writer and statesman Washington Irving (1783-1859) following his death the previous year, this small but generous volume collects several writings memorializing Irving's life and work then produced by various notable people and organizations throughout the United States. In addition to pieces by Irving himself we find, among other interesting materials, an address by Longfellow to the Massachusetts Historical Society as well as poems by James Russell Lowell and Henry Tuckerman. The latter, Sunnyside, first published in the New York Evening Post and later collected in Sheaf of Verse (1864), describes the gentle scenes at Irving’s funeral that was held at the Hudson Valley home from which the poem takes its title. It is notable for its emphasis on Irving as Washington’s biographer in stanzas such as: “Who traced with sympathetic hand / Our peerless chieftain’s high career / His life, that gladden'd all the land, / And blest a home — is ended here.” (emphasis original). It helps, therefore, to give a sense, not just for the artistic sensibilities of the times, but also for the reverence that this generation of American poets and writers had for their growing number of national heroes, both political and literary.

Bibliography of American Literature 20683.

Price: $250.00