Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Price: US$150.00 + shipping
Condition: Fair
Description: Two volumes in brown cloth boards. A first US Edition published in 1838, a year after the first English printing. Three volumes in two. Both volumes are free of writing or other marks, some foxing to pages through each book. Volume one with a split text block. Spine is missing its cloth. Boards are worn at the corners, with bumps through cloth. With 422 pages. Volume two with 469 pages. Text block has not split on this volume though the cloth is missing from the spine. Foxing to text throughout.
Seller: Riverby Books, Fredericksburg, VA, U.S.A.
Price: US$450.00 + shipping
Description: Three volumes in two. 8vo, publisher's patterned cloth. Some foxing throughout; spines sunned. There is a tiny pencil correction on p. 270 of Vol. I, changing "heated" to "hearted," said to be the work of Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Seller: Jeffrey H. Marks, Rare Books, ABAA, Rochester, NY, U.S.A.
Price: US$1127.66 + shipping
Description: Three Volumes in Two. First American edition. 8vo., orig. light brown cloth, vii, 422; v, 470pp. Ink name on e/paper of both volumes, some foxing throughout, light wear to spine ends but in fact a fine, attractive set. The correspondence between Carlyle and Emerson reveals that Emerson was so impressed with this work that he made an arrangement with Carlyle for the publication of an American edition. The American edition was printed from Emersons own copy of the English edition as "it was the only one in the country." As the edition began to sell Emerson made payments to Carlyle that "came most opportunely as the English edition yielded nothing," a fact that had caused Carlyle to despair of ever earning a living through writing and literature. Dyer p. 85.
Seller: David Mason Books (ABAC), Toronto, ON, Canada
(EMERSON, R. W.) CARLYLE, THOMAS. The French Revolution, a History. Boston: Little & Brown, 1838.
Price: US$30000.00 + shipping
Condition: Near Fine
Description: Two volumes. Original cloth. Light fraying to spine ends, else a fine set. First American edition. A splendid presentation copy inscribed by Ralph Waldo Emerson to his brother: Wm. Emerson from his brother Waldo. The inscription is in pencil in the second volume. Emerson used this intimate signature only with his immediate family. Page 270 of the first volume bears a pencil correction apparently in Emersons hand. Emerson paid his greatest tribute and service to his friend Thomas Carlyle in arranging for this first American publication of The French Revolution. Thus Emerson was responsible for establishing in America the view of the French Revolution that has molded popular conception of the French Revolution down to the present day (Printing and the Mind of Man 304). The French Revolution is a prose epic, a work of creative genius, in which the facts of history are illumined by the imagination of a poet (Cambridge History). I know nobody among my contemporaries except Carlyle who writes with any sinew and vivacity comparable to Plutarch and Montaigne (Emersons journal June 24, 1840). Maintaining a close friendship and literary association for decades, Emerson and Carlyle served as intellectual inspirations and touchstones for each other. In 1836 Emerson arranged for the American publication of and wrote an introduction for Carlyles Sartor Resartus, and Carlyle returned the favor a few years later, writing an introduction for the English edition of his friends Essays. Emerson wrote in his journal, Carlyle represents very well the literary man, makes good the place of and function of Erasmus and Johnson, of Dryden and Swift, to our generation. He is thoroughly a gentleman and deserves well of the whole fraternity of scholars, for sustaining the dignity of his profession of Author in England (July 12, 1842). RARE: we can trace no other inscribed copies at auction or in any of the major collections of American literature (Arnold, Chamberlain, Wakeman, Wilson, etc.). This is a 19th-century literary association copy of the greatest significance.
Seller: 19th Century Rare Book & Photograph Shop, Stevenson, MD, U.S.A.