The American Whig Review (1852)

New York: D.W. Holly; Champion Bissell, 1852. Softcover. Good. 10 consecutive monthly issues (plus two duplicate copies), in original wrappers: March-December, 1852. All ten issues are illustrated with an engraved frontispiece plate: including portraits of General Winfield Scott and Daniel Webster. Dust soiling and scattered foxing, most wrappers have scattered short tears along the spines and edges, one back cover is detached, good only overall. A collection of ten loose issues of America’s preeminent journal devoted to politics and literature. Contains several important literary reviews, including articles on Margaret Fuller Ossoli, “Bleak House, Charles Dickens, and the Copyright,” Hawthorne’s *Blithedale Romance*, and a now classic dismissal of Melville’s *Pierre, or the Ambiguities*: “A bad book! Affected in dialect, unnatural in conception, repulsive in plot, and inartistic in construction. Such is Mr. Melville’s worst and latest work.”

Also noteworthy are two articles on the California gold rush: “A Lump from the California Placer,” and “The New Gold Regions: Effects of the Increase of Gold” and a series of four long articles on the Mormons: “Mormonism in Illinois,” published in the March, April, June, and December issues. A scarce run of ten consecutive issues, including a duplicate copy of the June issue, and a variant duplicate copy of the August issue with two engraved frontispiece portrait plates (of General Winfield Scott and Meredith P. Gentry of Tennessee). (Inventory #: 457735)