Notions of the Americans: Picked up by a Travelling Bachelor
London: Henry Colburn, 1828. Very Good. Item #27154
London: Henry Colburn, 1828. First U.K. Edition. Two volumes; octavos (21.5cm.); full contemporary blind-ruled calf by J. Mackenzie, gilt spines in six compartments, red and green spine labels, all edges speckled red; xxiv,459,[1]; xi,[1],477,[1]pp. Leather a bit dried and scuffed at extremities, uneven dark spotting to spines, moderate foxing to early leaves, else a Very Good, internally quite fresh set of James Fenimore Cooper's travelogue first composed in 1830 while traveling through the United States.
Provenance: Armorial ex libris of Frances Mary Richardson Currer to both front pastedowns. By the age of thirty Currer (1785-1861), the unmarried sole heir to both the Richardson and Currer estates, had amassed one of the most celebrated private libraries of her generation. She was considered the first as well as the greatest female bibliophile in Europe, with "a heart as big as St Paul's Dome and as warm as Volcanic lava" (Dawson Turner, cf. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography).
As well as collecting in the areas of the natural sciences, topography, antiquities, history, classics, illustrated and early printed books, Currer was also an active and generous patron of many charities and public institutions, including the school at Cowan Bridge attended by the Brontë sisters. In fact their lives may have intersected more than once with the imminent bibliophile, who is believed to have paid off Patrick Brontë's debts when he was newly widowed. It has also been reasonably surmised that Charlotte Brontë borrowed the name for her pseudonym "Currer Bell."
BAL 3841; HOWES C750; SABIN 16486.
Price: $750.00