Holmes, Oliver Wendell.. John Lothrop Motley: A Memoir.. Boston. Riverside Press, Cambridge. Houghton, Osgood and Company. 1879., 1879.

Price: US$750.00 + shipping

Description: First Edition, one of an unspecific number of Large Paper Copies from the Large Paper Edition. Special dated presentation is 1878 which might make this a pre-publication copy.  John Lothrop Motley (1814–77), American historian and diplomat, b. Dorchester, Mass. Author of two novels concerning Thomas Morton (1839 and 1849), as well as a number of articles for the North American Review. Motley’s study of the history of the Netherlands resulted in The Rise of the Dutch Republic (3 vol., 1856), long a standard work and a popular success, and History of the United Netherlands (4 vol., 1860–67). His last work, The Life and Death of John of Barneveld, appeared in 1874. Motley had spent a short period in 1841 as secretary of the U.S. legation at St. Petersburg and later was minister to Austria (1861–67). President Grant appointed him minister to Great Britain in 1869, but difficulties arising from Motley’s tendency to ignore the instructions of Secretary of State Hamilton Fish and from Grant’s animosity toward his sponsor and friend, Charles Sumner, caused him to be relieved of his post in 1870. Signed/Presentation copy: "Henry H. A. Beach With the kind regards of his friend Oliver Wendell Holmes Dec. 25th 1878." Beach was apparently a medical student at Harvard and friend of Oliver Wendell Holmes. Very Good Plus in woven terracotta cloth and bevelled boards stamped brightly in gold on the front boards and the spine. Very clean, tight, and attractive with the top edge gilded. With light rubbing to the extremities and a little creasing to the top of the spine. With a faint whitish smudge between the gilded lettering "John and Lothrop" at the top of the spne. A very handsome, collectible, signed presentation copy. Scarce with an 1878 dated presentation inscription. First Edition, one of an unspecific number of Large Paper Copies from the Large Paper Edition. Special dated presentation is 1878 which might make this a pre-publication copy.

Seller: Brainerd Phillipson Rare Books, Holliston, MA, U.S.A.