THOREAU, Henry David (1817–1862). Walden; or, Life in the Woods. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1854.
8vo. (Scattered staining to pp. 3–14, some occasional margin browning). Engraved title–page vignette, engraved map of Walden Pond facing p. 306 (with S.W. Chandler imprint); 8pp. publisher’s catalogue dated September 1854 inserted at end. Original blindstamped brown cloth, gilt–lettered spine (light rubbing at extremes with few minor stains to covers, old repairs at spine ends, some minor splitting near rear joint, rear free endpaper torn away).
Provenance: Alexander W. Longfellow Sr. (1814–1901), gift inscription to Mrs. C. Boutelle dated in the year of publication in Portland, Maine. Longfellow was a U.S. Coast Survey topographer and brother of the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; Daniel Delehanty Vincent Stuart Jr. (bookplate dated 1915); David Hoch, professor of English at the University of Toledo (TLS laid in from Goodspeed’s Book Shop, dated 26 March 1984, in regards to the purchase of this book).
FIRST EDITION, one of only 2,000 copies, of this American masterpiece that “for almost a hundred years an inspiration to nature–lovers, to philosophers, to sociologists, to those of Calvin Coolidge turn, and to persons who love to read the English language written with clarity” (Grolier). Walden is not only the “most famous nature book by an American but probably the most famous since Walton’s Compleat Angler” (Bennett). BAL 20106; Borst A2.1a.; Bennett, p. 154; Grolier American 63.