Excursions
Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1863. Single volume, measuring 7.25 x 4.25 inches: [7], 8-319, [1]. Original dark blue-green textured cloth ruled in blind with central blind-stamped wreaths to boards, spine panel titled and decorated in gilt, brown coated endpapers. Tissue-guarded portrait frontispiece. Small bookseller notes to front endpapers. Upper hinge starting, corners lightly bumped, expert repair to spine ends.
First edition of this collection of nine contemplative essays on the subject of nature, published the year after Henry David Thoreau’s death, edited and prefaced by his Concord neighbor Ralph Waldo Emerson: “To [Thoreau] there was no such thing as size. The pond was a small ocean; the Atlantic, a large Walden Pond.” Contents include “Natural History of Massachusetts,” “A Walk to Wachusett,” “The Landlord,” “A Winter Walk,” “The Succession of Forest Trees,” “Walking,” “Autumnal Tints,” “Wild Apples,” and “Night and Moonlight.” BAL notes 1558 copies of this first edition, of which 1500 were bound. BAL 20111. A very good copy of a Transcendentalist classic.
Price: $1,500.00