first edition
1888
by Reid, Captain [Thomas] Mayne
1888. London: Swan Sonnenschein, Lowrey & Co., 1888. Original very dark blue cloth lettered in blind on the front covers and in gilt on the spines.
First Edition of this posthumously-published historical novel set against the backdrop of the English Civil War during the decade 1640-1650, centered about King Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria. Thomas Mayne Reid (1818-1883), born in Ireland, first became an adventurer in North America and among the Caribbean Islands... ...being of a rebellious disposition, he sailed [from Belfast] for New Orleans in December 1839 ... In New York he was employed as a corn factor but left his job after six months, supposedly because he refused to whip slaves. He then sojourned in Nashville, where he ... ran, for seven months, the New English, Mathematical, and Classical School. In either Natchez, Mississippi, or Natchitoches, Louisiana, he worked as a clerk for a provision dealer... and in 1843 Reid was in St. Louis, from where, according to contradictory sources, he either started up the Missouri River in the company of John James Audubon or for Wyoming with Sir William Drummond Stewart. In August of that year his first poem was published in Godey's Magazine over the pseudonym A Poor Scholar, and that fall he first met Edgar Allan Poe in Philadelphia. Reid, Poe later wrote, was "a colossal but most picturesque liar. He fibs on a surprising scale but with the finish of an artist, and that is why I listen to him attentively." With the outbreak of the Mexican War Reid enlisted in the First New York Volunteer Infantry and on December 3, 1846, was commissioned a second lieutenant... He returned to London in 1850, and began his second career, as a writer of fifty-plus adventure and historical tales -- many describing colonial policy in the American colonies, the horrors of slave labor, and the lives of native Americans. "Although Reid was never considered a major novelist, in England he made a significant contribution to the popular image of the American West as a place of romance and high adventure" [quotes from Texas State Historical Society]. This copy is in the secondary binding of very dark blue cloth -- which today is the binding most-frequently encountered. Condition is remarkably fine and bright. Sadleir 2026 (citing the primary binding plus this binding); Wolff 5747 (describing only a third binding). Housed in a handsome morocco-backed clamshell case with marbled sides. Provenance: the Vol I endpaper bears a faint (eradicated) signature, leaving (curiously!) the date 1886. (Inventory #: 15659)
First Edition of this posthumously-published historical novel set against the backdrop of the English Civil War during the decade 1640-1650, centered about King Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria. Thomas Mayne Reid (1818-1883), born in Ireland, first became an adventurer in North America and among the Caribbean Islands... ...being of a rebellious disposition, he sailed [from Belfast] for New Orleans in December 1839 ... In New York he was employed as a corn factor but left his job after six months, supposedly because he refused to whip slaves. He then sojourned in Nashville, where he ... ran, for seven months, the New English, Mathematical, and Classical School. In either Natchez, Mississippi, or Natchitoches, Louisiana, he worked as a clerk for a provision dealer... and in 1843 Reid was in St. Louis, from where, according to contradictory sources, he either started up the Missouri River in the company of John James Audubon or for Wyoming with Sir William Drummond Stewart. In August of that year his first poem was published in Godey's Magazine over the pseudonym A Poor Scholar, and that fall he first met Edgar Allan Poe in Philadelphia. Reid, Poe later wrote, was "a colossal but most picturesque liar. He fibs on a surprising scale but with the finish of an artist, and that is why I listen to him attentively." With the outbreak of the Mexican War Reid enlisted in the First New York Volunteer Infantry and on December 3, 1846, was commissioned a second lieutenant... He returned to London in 1850, and began his second career, as a writer of fifty-plus adventure and historical tales -- many describing colonial policy in the American colonies, the horrors of slave labor, and the lives of native Americans. "Although Reid was never considered a major novelist, in England he made a significant contribution to the popular image of the American West as a place of romance and high adventure" [quotes from Texas State Historical Society]. This copy is in the secondary binding of very dark blue cloth -- which today is the binding most-frequently encountered. Condition is remarkably fine and bright. Sadleir 2026 (citing the primary binding plus this binding); Wolff 5747 (describing only a third binding). Housed in a handsome morocco-backed clamshell case with marbled sides. Provenance: the Vol I endpaper bears a faint (eradicated) signature, leaving (curiously!) the date 1886. (Inventory #: 15659)
(207) 846-6070
