DEMOCRACY. An American Novel

1880. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1880. 8 pp undated ads (plus endpaper ads, the front one dated March 31, 1880). Original cream cloth decorated in black.

First Edition of this anonymously-published novel, a cutting satire of Washington politics; Adams's authorship was not acknowledged until after his death in 1918. It is about Washington power, its use and abuse. It involves a woman who goes to Washington so that she can be near the hub of all political power, and her "salon" becomes the hub itself; a particularly apt quote is "Is a respectable government impossible in a democracy?". Characters include a Senator Clinton from New York, (truncated) as well as a Mr. Gore. This copy is in Blanck's state "A", bound in cream-colored linen, with signature mark "F" present on p. 65, and with the endpapers dated March 31, 1880 (the book was first published just that week). Blanck lists seven states -- A through E in white linen and numbered #112 in the Leisure Hour Series, F and G in mustard yellow cloth and corrected to #111. (Blanck gives precedence to this state "A," but then says "The sequence of forms B-G has not been determined and the order as given is all but wholly arbitrary" -- though cream-colored cloth was certainly the earlier binding.) Condition is near-fine, with very little of the usual cover soil, very little of the usual spine-end wear, and very little of the usual bubbling of the cloth; there is a small bit of adhesive near the gutter of the title leaf. Blanck 11. Provenance: the title page bears the early signature of Ogden H[offman]. Fethers (1845-1911), an attorney in Janesville Wisconsin who would become a regent of the University of Wisconsin and, as supreme chancellor of the Knights of Pythias, was one of the authors of the Pythian Service Book (Nashville 1906). (Inventory #: 15697)