MANUSCRIPTS
For
our MSS in SPANISH: Click here.
MANUSCRIPTS
For
our MSS in SPANISH: Click here.
A
Philadelphia
Surveyor’s
Practice
in a
“Growth Era”
Levering, John H. Manuscript on paper, in English. [Philadelphia, PA], 1885–88. Folio (35.8 cm, 14"); 400 (205 used) pp.
Click any image where the hand appears on
Documentingthe Sale of a SlaveLloyd, William L. A.L.S. to Garret D. Wall. [New Jersey or Pennsylvania], 22 May 1819. 12mo (6.125" x 8"), 1 p.
Click the image to the left Garret D. Wall was a lawyer in, and later a Senator from, New Jersey.
• Written in a clear hand. Fold along horizontal middle of document. Light stain and residue of mounting into an album. Lacks integral address leaf. Old price and dealer code (Sessler’s) in pencil in lower margin.
Important 18th-Century Mexican Silver & Gilt Binding
Text Signed Three Times by Viceroy BucareliLuna Gorraez y Malo, José Antonio Pedro Miguel Domingo de. Bound volume containing six original documents on paper, in Spanish, incorporating relevant portions of older documents. Mexico, 1773. Folio. 11 leaves.
Single-click any image where the hand appears on
• All documents on stamped paper. Excellent condition. Binding with light abrasion to edges; gilt on the silver closures partially perished. A handsome, significant production.
Presentation
Copy of
the“Greatest
Poem EVER
WrittenMarkham, Edwin. [drop-title] Lincoln, the man of the people. No place [United States]: No publisher/printer, © 1919 [ but printed ca. 1925–30]. Folio (35.5 cm, 14"). [1] f.
Click the image for an enlargement. Author's presentation copy: Signed by Markham, with an inscription “with my friendly greetings” to a theological seminary, dated 1933.
• Mounted on cardboard. Age-toned, edges darkened; clean and unchipped. (26119)
Food for the Spirit — Food for the Body?
A KANSAS CITY MANUSCRIPT
Marshall, H.E. Autograph Manuscript Signed, in English, on paper. Kansas City, ca. 1891. Small 4to, pp. 3–14, 17–80, 83–100 [i.e., 96 pp].
Handwritten recipes include soups (from consommé to black bean to salmon bisque), fish (salmon croquettes to oyster omelet), chicken (chicken pudding!), sauces, breads, salads, cakes and pies, and miscellaneous concoctions like cement for china. Some food recipes are identified as to source (Mrs. Rorer, Mrs. Holmes, etc.).
Names appearing in the church notes, peeping out from under the clippings, are T.M. James, H.S. Mills, and Mrs. James Wilson Marshall — with Heath, Wilson, Smith, Ferguson, Hawley, and Ridgeway additionally appearing as surnames only.
• Stationer's blank book, all pages ruled in blue with a red left-margin line. All leaves loose, covers present, spine perished and replaced with cloth tape. Some chipping of the inner and outer margins of some leaves. A delicate volume: A miracle that it has survived!
Tough Times for a Famous “Name”Meade,
George. Autograph Letter Signed. Philadelphia, PA, 1798. Folio (31.7 cm, 12.5"). [2] ff.
Meade was, briefly, a member of the 3rd Philadelphia Battalion, but saw no military action himself; his grandson was Gen. George Gordon Meade, commander of the Army of the Potomac.
• On Meade, see: Dictionary of American Biography, XII, 473–74. Creased along folds, with a few ink blotches and very minor offsetting. Later pencilled note beneath signature.
19th-Century Reader's Comment: “This book is full of folly and exag[g]erations” Melville, Herman. White-Jacket, or the world in a man-of-war. New York: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, 1850. 12mo. 456 pp., [1 of 3] leaves of ads.
Click the images for enlargements. And, indeed, this account of a young man's experiences on the Neversink on a voyage around “The Horn” recounts the cruelty and hardship that Melville and all seaman experienced on naval vessels, but it also tells of camaraderie and good times.
Evidence of readership: Foremargins with finger oil staining. Notes in margins: p. 275, “this book is full of folly and exagerations” (sic); p. 345, “perfectly just”; p. 389, “what an improbable story — a regular U.S. Sailor wearing a rag[g]ed white jacket, a regular non-descript”; p. 403, “mis print”; lower area below final line of text: “damn bad,” “not good,” “good for the devil.”
Provenance: From the library of the German Society of Pennsylvania.
• BAL 13662; Wright, II, 1871. Slightly later quarter
sheep with marbled paper sides; binding shows wear, refurbished. Text with
staining and spotting as evidence of heavy reading and use; last several gatherings
with reinforcement at gutter. Various margins with short tears. Two leaves
misbound; lacks two leaves of advertisements. Ex–social club library:
call number on endpaper and at top of title-page, pressure- and rubber-stamp
on title-page, three pages with light rubber-stamp, no other library markings.
Now in a half-calf clamshell case with gilt spine. 
A
copy with a distinct, interesting, and perhaps further-explorable history!
(26827)
With
a
SEAL
Meant for REuseMifflin, Samuel. Document signed on parchment, in English. “Exemplification of a common recovery with double vouchers of the messuage & plantation in Blockley late the estate of Morton Garrett.” Philadelphia,
1776. Folio (51.5 cm, 20.5"). [1] p.
• Document relating to strife between John Ord and Gunning Bedford
(probably not the Constitutional signer but rather his cousin; both Bedfords
were born in Philadelphia, a few years apart) over a Philadelphia-area property
and its rents. Written in March of the “sixteenth year of the reign of”
George III and the year of the Revolution, this was filed before Samuel Ashmead,
justice of the Court of Common Pleas; the document is indited in a fine, light
hand, and signed by Samuel Mifflin, a merchant and landowner who in 1761 had
refused election as mayor of the city. All
the names involved here have powerful Philadelphia associations.
A seal is affixed to the sheet, intended to be removed and used “for
sealing of Writs in our Court.”
Blockley,
in which the land in question was located, was a township located in West
Philadelphia from about 1677 until its consolidation with the city in 1854.
The name has lingered, although it has been superceded in general usage by
the broader term “University City.”
• Parchment crisp and untorn, with outermost folded portions lightly spotted; front with early inked title as given above, plus pencilled numerals. An evocative document connected to some very prominent names, in excellent condition, with its seal protected for its intended reuse by a diamond-shaped paper covering.
For more PRE-1820 AMERICANA,
click here.
For
more of PHILADELPHIA For
more COMMERCE / TRADE / This
also appears in the GENERAL
A Friendship Book Milne, Walter J. Manuscript on paper, in English. [U.K.], 1914. Long 8vo (10.5 cm, 4.1"). [140 (32 used)] pp.; illus.
TWO
nicely accomplished pen-and-ink drawings of ships (one of a great steamship, signed “J.A.M. Harvey,” 1914, one of a three-masted sailing ship accompanied by a small “modern” warship, signed Jack
Neill, 1915). Friends have also noted favorite authors, “authoresses,” and heroines, and two pages are devoted to a series of cut-out autographs (possibly not original) affixed beneath photographs of Ellen Terry, Estelle Stead, and
others. Place names are London and Hunstanton (Norfolk).
One leaf bears a number of small photographs of young men, labelled “1915” — possibly classmates from St. Paul’s?
• Publisher’s cloth wrappers, front cover gilt-stamped “Autographs”; edges and extremities chipped. Text block partially separated from spine. Some fading to colored pages, with occasional very slight offsetting or ink smearing.
Daily Business Life — International! New Orleans 1831 Moctezuma, A.M. Autograph Letter Signed, to Francisco Pizarro Martínez. In Spanish, on paper. New Orleans: 22 October 1831. Small 4to (25 cm x 10"). [1] p. with integral address leaf; and [2] p. translation into English, ca. 1837.
Click the image for enlargement. • Very good condition. Written in a small but clear hand. (24650)
 TO Part
VI . . . |