first edition
1901
by Thayer, Phineas [Ernest Lawrence]
1901. [a handsome copy] Chicago: A.C. McClurg & Co., 1912. Original green paper-covered boards pictorially decorated (with bat and big black bow) in gold, black, yellow and grey.
Very early edition of this most-famous baseball poem -- technically, the first separate hardbound edition, profusely illustrated. (Since earlier wrappered copies are today practically unobtainable, this 1912 book is generally regarded as the first obtainable edition.) The poem's earliest known appearance, pseudonymously by "Phin," was in the San Francisco Examiner of Sunday, June 3, 1888. Quoting at length from Murdoch's Mighty Casey... "Phin" had written a number of other ballads during the previous six months for the Examiner. It is not likely, however, that any of his ballads would be remembered today... were it not for a fortuitous set of circumstances which occurred the following year. Early in May 1889... the McCaull Light Opera Company... was about to open a new show at Wallack's Theater in New York City. Two of McCaull's young actors, Digby Bell and DeWolf Hopper, were great baseball fans. They were at the Polo Grounds almost every afternoon and for two years had put on annual benefit shows for the New York Giants... Bell and Hopper got the idea of a baseball night at Wallack's at which both the [visiting Chicago] White Stockings and the Giants, seated in long rows on opposite sides of the theater, would be honored guests. They proposed the plan to McCaull, who liked it... and announced it in the local papers. Archibald Clevering Gunter, a writer of some distinction in the 1880s and a devotee of baseball as well, read the notice and went to see McCaull. "I've got just the thing for your baseball night," he said. "It's a baseball poem I cut out of a 'Frisco paper when I was on the coast last winter... It's a lulu, and young Hopper could do it a turn." McCaull read it, jumped in glee, and agreed that Hopper should recite it... On his debut Casey lifted this audience, composed largely of baseball players and fans, out of their seats... They had expected as anyone does on hearing Casey for the first time, that the mighty batsman would slam the ball out of the lot... Although Thayer's poem had little effect on his own career, it transformed Hopper's life... He reminisced, "As it turned out I was launching a career, a career of declaiming those verses up and down the favored land the balance of my life"... [Hopper had no idea who had written the poem, but] he continued to recite the poem at a developing pace of popularity, and by 1900 "Casey at the Bat" had become a national institution. By now there were numerous claims of authorship. In 1901, the poem was finally issued as a separate book (in wrappers, with Thayer as author) by the New Amsterdam Book Co. of New York, now very scarce; there was also a wrappered edition in Chicago (only one known copy). This led to the poem (mis-attributed) being collected in A TREASURY OF HUMOROUS POETRY (Boston: Dana Estes, 1902). It was not until 1905 that Thayer finally stepped out of anonymity to refute the charlatans' claims, and announce authorship. In 1912 came this first hardbound edition, with orange-and-black illustrations by one of the major illustrators of the day. This is an unusually clean, close-to-fine copy, with only very minor wear at the extremities -- practically unavoidable since these are paper-covered boards. In all a handsome copy of a classic. (Inventory #: 15656)
Very early edition of this most-famous baseball poem -- technically, the first separate hardbound edition, profusely illustrated. (Since earlier wrappered copies are today practically unobtainable, this 1912 book is generally regarded as the first obtainable edition.) The poem's earliest known appearance, pseudonymously by "Phin," was in the San Francisco Examiner of Sunday, June 3, 1888. Quoting at length from Murdoch's Mighty Casey... "Phin" had written a number of other ballads during the previous six months for the Examiner. It is not likely, however, that any of his ballads would be remembered today... were it not for a fortuitous set of circumstances which occurred the following year. Early in May 1889... the McCaull Light Opera Company... was about to open a new show at Wallack's Theater in New York City. Two of McCaull's young actors, Digby Bell and DeWolf Hopper, were great baseball fans. They were at the Polo Grounds almost every afternoon and for two years had put on annual benefit shows for the New York Giants... Bell and Hopper got the idea of a baseball night at Wallack's at which both the [visiting Chicago] White Stockings and the Giants, seated in long rows on opposite sides of the theater, would be honored guests. They proposed the plan to McCaull, who liked it... and announced it in the local papers. Archibald Clevering Gunter, a writer of some distinction in the 1880s and a devotee of baseball as well, read the notice and went to see McCaull. "I've got just the thing for your baseball night," he said. "It's a baseball poem I cut out of a 'Frisco paper when I was on the coast last winter... It's a lulu, and young Hopper could do it a turn." McCaull read it, jumped in glee, and agreed that Hopper should recite it... On his debut Casey lifted this audience, composed largely of baseball players and fans, out of their seats... They had expected as anyone does on hearing Casey for the first time, that the mighty batsman would slam the ball out of the lot... Although Thayer's poem had little effect on his own career, it transformed Hopper's life... He reminisced, "As it turned out I was launching a career, a career of declaiming those verses up and down the favored land the balance of my life"... [Hopper had no idea who had written the poem, but] he continued to recite the poem at a developing pace of popularity, and by 1900 "Casey at the Bat" had become a national institution. By now there were numerous claims of authorship. In 1901, the poem was finally issued as a separate book (in wrappers, with Thayer as author) by the New Amsterdam Book Co. of New York, now very scarce; there was also a wrappered edition in Chicago (only one known copy). This led to the poem (mis-attributed) being collected in A TREASURY OF HUMOROUS POETRY (Boston: Dana Estes, 1902). It was not until 1905 that Thayer finally stepped out of anonymity to refute the charlatans' claims, and announce authorship. In 1912 came this first hardbound edition, with orange-and-black illustrations by one of the major illustrators of the day. This is an unusually clean, close-to-fine copy, with only very minor wear at the extremities -- practically unavoidable since these are paper-covered boards. In all a handsome copy of a classic. (Inventory #: 15656)
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