Crouch, F[rederick] Nicholls. Norma. A Serio-Comic Burlesque, Written Expressly for Sanford’s Opera House. [Philadelphia?, 1856]. The 10 opera or song libretti in Italian and English bound together in this sammelband were all lacking or defective in AAS collections. Most are for serious Italian operas, but also included is a previously unlocated burlesque of Vincenzo Bellini’s opera ...
Belle of Baltimore. T.W. Strong, [between 1843 and 1866] A minstrel songster known in only two other copies (and those are either a variant or defective copy). This copy of Belle of Baltimore is remarkable for its intact publisher’s green wrappers and illustrations. The seven woodcuts, all but one depicting African Americans, are located on the ...
Mitchell, Conrad. A Complete Treatise on the Mare and Foal, at the Time of Delivery, with Illustrations. Middleburg, Pa.:Volksfreund, print., 1869. AAS member David Doret spoke at the Fall 2013 annual meeting about his strategy of acquiring en masse later nineteenth-century titles, which do not command a premium in the rare book market, to fill in ...
The Album. New York: F. & R. Lockwood, [between 1818 and 1822] Primarily used for recording poetry, this album consists of an engraved title page followed by blank sheets, all bound up in a bespoke binding personalized for Adeline Morgan. It appears to be one of the earliest albums issued thus (in a decorative binding, with ...
Johnson, Andrew W. The Eclectic Harmony. Revised and improved second edition. Shelbyville, Tenn.: N.O. Wallace & Co., Printers, Shelbyville Free Press Office, 1847. Only one other copy is known of this title, and that was purchased in 2001 by the Center for Popular Music at Middle Tennessee State University. Then just this past year a private ...
Chronicles of New England. Chap. 1000. [United States: s.n., 1826-7?] Two copies of the earlier Chapter 999 have been traced (one of which was already at AAS), but this appears to be the only copy of Chapter 1000. When it appeared at auction this fall, we had to have it. A satire written in Biblical style, ...
To continue the celebration of the American Library Association’s 2014 Preservation Week held back in April (and mentioned in an earlier post), we're bringing you a behind-the-scenes peek into a conservation project that started just a couple weeks ago on a recent acquisition – a Bay Psalm Book from 1709. The revitalization process for this ...
Have you already picked your favorites for the Oscars this Sunday? Here in Worcester, American Hustle is a popular choice since scenes from it were shot on Worcester streets and in the Worcester Art Museum. Captain Phillips even shot a few scenes at the Worcester Airport (yes, there is a Worcester airport!). Here at the American Antiquarian ...
I can speak of Slavery only so far as it came under my own observation – only so far as I have known and experienced it in my own person. (p. 17-8) So Solomon Northup begins his harrowing account of slavery from the inside. In Twelve Years a Slave, Northup, a free black man from upstate ...
Dilettante [i.e. Edward W. Clay] Lessons in Dancing, Exemplified by Sketches from Real Life in the City of Philadelphia. Philadelphia: Published by R.H. Hobson, 1828. Only the second known copy of this title with eight delicately hand-colored plates of dancing couples mounted on stubs and sewn into printed tan paper wrappers with the imprint information. The ...
Constitution and By-Laws of the Hook & Ladder Company, No. 1, Cleveland. Cleveland: Rice & Penniman, 1836. APPARENTLY UNRECORDED, ONLY KNOWN COPY! Rice & Penniman were known to be printing in Cleveland, Ohio, in the mid-1830s, but this particular pamphlet is evidently entirely unrecorded. The Constitution for this firefighting company defines the duties of the Officers, who ...
Travellers' Rough Notes, on Niagara Falls. Black Rock, NY: Smith H. Salisbury, 1827. APPARENTLY UNRECORDED, ONLY KNOWN COPY! Please excuse the yelling, but we get excited at AAS when we are able to add a new piece to scholarly and bibliographical knowledge. Though tiny (just a little over 11cm in height) this small pamphlet represents just such ...
Manton, Walter P. Taxidermy Without a Teacher. So. Framingham [Mass.]: The J.C. Clark Printing Company, 1876. The author describes how he originally wanted to call this book “Simple Chats on Taxidermy,” and in it he certainly takes a conversational approach after first setting the stage: “I ask the reader to take himself, in imagination, to my ...
Writings of Omaha. Chicago: S. S. Jones, Publisher, Religio-Philosophical Journal Office, 1869. APPARENTLY UNRECORDED, ONLY KNOWN COPY! Describing the nature of reality, electricity, and the spirit realm in 61 numbered paragraphs, this overview of Spiritualist theory is also an apparently unrecorded Ante-Fire Chicago imprint. The 26-page pamphlet in its original printed green wrappers was issued by the ...
Carroll, Lewis. The Hunting of the Snark: an Agony in Eight Fits. Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, late Ticknor & Fields, and Fields, Osgood & Co., 1876. Best known as the author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865), Lewis Carroll – the pen-name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, a mathematical lecturer at Christ Church, Oxford – ...
