Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Price: US$7500.00 + shipping
Description: First and only Printing Very good- in its original, light brown, wavy cloth covered boards blind stamped with a five-rule border on both boards. This copy has been professionally rebacked preserving the majority of the original spine strip and retaining the original end sheets. A small octavo of 7 13/16 by 4 3/4 inches with the cloth worn through at the fore edges of the boards and in sections along the upper and lower edges of the boards. The front hinge is starting and there are occasional marginal pencil marks in the text. Heavy erasures of the front and rear most end sheets have also caused two small holes in those pages. There is a minor tanning to the interior of the facing pages 112 and 113 perhaps from two small leaves having been pressed within the book. Lastly, the page announcing the imminent publication of Walden is missing a 1 1/2 inch chip from its upper fore corner. That chip has no impact on the printed text on that page. 413 pages of text followed by a one page announcement stating Walden "will soon be published". It is important to note that due to a printer's error the last three lines of page 396 are missing. Those lines have been written out in pencil perhaps by the author or the author's sister as indicated in both BAL and Borst. The printer's errors on page 120 and 139 have not been either noted or corrected. This was Thoreau's first book, which he had to pay for to get published. Unfortunately, it did not sell well. From bibliographic sources, we infer that this copy is most likely one of the 256 bound, unsold copies returned to Thoreau in October 1853 by the publisher. In 1862 Ticknor and Fields purchased 145 bound copies and the 450 unbound sheets from Thoreau. During the intervening years Thoreau either gave away or sold 111 of the bound copies. In that time Thoreau discovered the missing lines on page 396. In some of those bound copies either Thoreau or his sister, Sophia Thoreau, and an unknown third individual added the missing lines on the lower portion of that page in pencil. Expert opinion indicates that this handwriting is not that of either Thoreau or his sister. (BAL 20104; Borst A1.1.a1; Howes T-220)
Seller: Town's End Books, ABAA, Deep River, CT, U.S.A.
Price: US$7500.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: 1st Edition, 1st Printing, 1st Issue. Limited edition. One of 1000 copies printed. The author's first book. Original publisher's brown cloth binding with gilt lettering on the spine. 5 1/4" x 8." 493 pages, complete. One additional page in the back advertises the upcoming publication of Thoreau's iconic book, Walden, or Life in the Woods. Pages and covers are very clean and intact. Binding is tight. Front and back inner hinges have been neatly reinforced with white cloth tape. Spine has been professionally repaired. Slight rubbing to the front and back covers. Some corner and edge wear. A few pages have offsetting and slight foxing. A Very Good copy. Referenced from the Pittsburgh Series in Bibliography, no. A 1.1.a: "Publication: 1,000 sets of sheets printed at the author's expense. 550 were bound as needed. Published 26 May 1849. Deposited for copyright: title, 6 June 1849; book, 9 July 1849. . Note one: A Week [on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers] did not sell well and on 28 October 1853 the 706 remaining copies (256 bound copies and 450 in sheets) were shipped back to Thoreau to spend the next nine years in his attic bedroom, with Thoreau occasionally selling copies or distributing them to friends. On 12 April 1862 Ticknor and Fields bought the remaining 145 bound copies and the 450 in sheets for 40[cents] each. The 450 sets of sheets were bound with a new title page tipped in for a second issue." The Pittsburgh Bibliography also mentions four binding variations, "priority undetermined": "1. Light brown AR cloth (wavy); front and back covers blindstamped with five-rule border; spine blindstamped with rules. . 2. Black T cloth (ribbed); front and back covers blindstamped with five-rule border; spine blindstamped with rules. . 3. Brown Z cloth (triangular); front and back covers blindstamped with five-rule border; spine blindstamped with rules. . 4. Light brown T cloth (ribbed) or AR cloth (wavy); front and back covers blindstamped with five-rule border surrounding an elaborate design of plumes and scrolls with an oval-shaped scroll design in the center; spine blindstamped with rules and rose-and-leaves design." This edition is also referenced in the Bibliography of American Literature (BAL) as no. 20104. Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) was an American author, naturalist, abolitionist, and philosopher. Thoreau is best-known for his poems and essays. Many of his writings interweave themes of nature and philosophy. In this book, Thoreau recollects his travels on a boat trip between Concord, Massachusetts and Concord, New Hampshire, while interweaving, in his signature genre-bending style, a variety of topics relating to philosophy, history, and poetry.
Seller: Barry Cassidy Rare Books, Sacramento, CA, U.S.A.
Price: US$7500.00 + shipping
Description: First edition of the author's first book. 413, [3] pp. With terminal advertisement leaf announcing "Will Soon Be Published Walden, or Life in the Woods .". 1 vols. 8vo. Thoreau's First Book, With an Unrecorded Contemporary Review : 'Rare Merits'. A notable copy of Thoreau's first book, largely overlooked when initially published, and now a recognized classic. Emerson famously declined to review his friend's book; but the present copy makes it clear that some did commit their opinions to print: tipped in at the verso of the announcement for Walden is a 500-word review of the 'Week', signed in type "F.", and with initials "O.B.F." in ink below, in the hand of Octavius Brooks Frothingham (1822-1895), Harvard class of 1843, Divinity School class of 1846, and in 1849 the minister of the North Church in Salem, Mass. It is likely from a Salem paper, possibly the Observer. Thoreau's lectures were announced in the paper, and in the early 1850s, Frothingham had pamphlets printed at the Observer print shop and his discourses were reported in the paper. Frothingham's biographer Caruthers (page 28): "One wonders what he thought of Henry Thoreau, who in Frothingham's later History of Transcendentalism, received a mere parenthetical reference." This can now be answered. The review opens as follows: In looking over this book we have been agreeably disappointed. [.] With all this, however, Mr. Thoreau's book has rare merits. The author is an enthusiast and a scientific one upon the works and scenes of Nature [.] This copy includes 2 pencil corrections in the margins, likely in Thoreau's hand, executed in the text in ink in a precise hand (almost certainly that of Frothingham): at p. 120, wash; at p. 139, diency, experience corrected in ink to expediency. After he moved to Jersey City and New York, Frothingham became a champion of nonsectarian religious thought, and wrote frequent criticism, reviewing, for example, Renan's Life of Jesus for the Christian Examiner in 1863. He was also the first historian of Transcendentalism; his work, Transcendentalism in New England (1876), remains the most comprehensive in its historical scope (yet even when it first appeared, it was faulted for neglecting Thoreau). This review is not recorded in Borst's Henry David Thoreau, A Reference Guide (1987), nor in Scharnhorst (1992) or Cameron's two Supplements (1997). It is notable that no reference is made to Thoreau's theology, which so incensed other contemporaries; and that the reviewer has identified Thoreau as an important writer on nature in the line of Gilbert White. A contemporary copy with AN UNREPORTED REVIEW OF THOREAU'S FIRST BOOK. BAL 20104; Borst A1.1.a; for Frothingham, see: Caruthers, Octavius Brooks Frothingham, Gentle Radical (Univ. of Alabama Pr., 1977) Original brown blindstamped cloth. Spine perished, boards edgeworn and detached. Textblock clean and sound. Review of the book tipped in at end on verso of advertisement leaf and facing blank (clipping partly toned). Half morocco slipcase and chemise 413, [3] pp. With terminal advertisement leaf announcing "Will Soon Be Published Walden, or Life in the Woods .". 1 vols. 8vo First edition of the author's first book.
Seller: James Cummins Bookseller, ABAA, New York, NY, U.S.A.
Price: US$9250.00 + shipping
Description: [6],[7]-413,[3]pp. Publisher's black cloth ruled in blind, lettered in gilt. Endsheets slightly tanned, spine ends chipped with 6mm loss at crown and narrow splits at crown and toe of lower outer hinge, foretips worn, upper board shows some light soiling, 1.5cm narrow chip in middle of upper outer hinge, extreme lower fore-tip of lead 21/22 folded and thus a bit over extended when bound; a good, sound copy, internally very good or better, uncommonly clean, with only a hint of occasional light foxing. First edition, first issue, of Thoreau's first book, in the trade binding (BAL's binding A). This copy does not bear the pencil corrections and additions that occur in a few copies. Thoreau paid for its publication in an edition of 1000 copies, of which 706 copies (bound and in sheets) reverted to the author after dismal sales. Of special note is the presence of the terminal advert leaf noting that WALDEN "will soon be published." The poor sales of this title were, in part, cause for its delay until 1854. Eventually, in 1862, Ticknor and Fields acquired the remainder of bound and unbound copies, and 500 copies were equipped with a cancel title-leaf, constituting the second issue. A second, corrected edition was not called for until 1868. BORST A1.1.A1. BAL 20104.
Seller: William Reese Company - Literature, ABAA, New Haven, CT, U.S.A.
Henry David Thoreau. A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. James Munroe & Co., Boston, 1849.
Price: US$9300.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: First edition, First Issue (1849), this is one of the first 550 bound copies of "A Week On The Concord and Merrimack Rivers" and contains the original James Munroe 1849 title page. * * * ABOUT Written while he was living in his cabin at Walden Pond in Concord, "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers" was Thoreau's first book. Unable to obtain a publisher, Thoreau paid out of his pocket and hired Boston Publisher James Munroe to print the book for him. Munroe refused to market the book for Thoreau, but printed 1,000 copies for Thoreau. Of these, 550 were initially bound, and the remaining 450 copies remained in loose sheets. Without a traditional publisher to do the work and promotion for him, Thoreau struggled to sell "A Week". He gave away 75 copies but by 1853 only 219 more copies had sold. Munroe, who had been storing the extra copies in his basement for nearly two years, told Thoreau to come pick them up. Thoreau hired a horse and cart and transported the remaining 706 copies (450 of which were still in sheets) to his family's house in Concord prompting his famous October 28, 1853 journal entry, "I have now a library of nearly nine hundred volumes, over seven hundred of which I wrote myself. By the time of his death in 1862, Thoreau had sold or given away only another 111 copies. Ticknor and Fields bought the remaining 450 sets of sheets and 145 bound copies, and reissued the unbound copies with a cancelled title page carrying their own imprint. * * * CONDITION The original brown cloth has been rebacked, preserving most of the original spine and the original endpapers. The covers are blindstamped with an elaborate design of plumes and scrolls with an oval-shaped scroll design in the center, all within a five-rule border. There is a 19th century church library blindstamp on the title-page and on a couple of internal pages. On the front pastedown is the bookplate of Edward Borncamp [the curate of the church from 1897-1903]. There is some discoloration and offsetting to the endpapers and evidence of an earlier removal from the front pastedown beneath the aforementioned bookplate. Otherwise the book is very clean inside; some pages, (including the ad at the back of the book for the upcoming "Walden"), are still uncut. * * * PHOTOGRAPHS - more photographs available on request. Pictures with pennies highlight uncorrected words that were changed in later printings of the book.
Seller: Barrow Bookstore, Concord, MA, U.S.A.
Price: US$10000.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: First edition. (Three blank lines on p. 396 not filled-in. Trade binding; BAL 20104.) 413, [1], [1, ad for Walden: "Soon to be published"] pp. Original blindstamped brown cloth, spine lettered in gilt, pale yellow endpapers. Very Good with worn and slightly chipped spine ends, edge-rubbing that is heaviest along front joint, a few ink drops to cloth. Top third of front free endpaper excised, penciled former owner's signature to following page, light dampstaining to margins at lower fore-edge, bookplate of John S. Wood on paste down, portrait of Thoreau from early magazine affixed to page facing title page. Housed in custom green cloth with snapping chemise, gilt spine titles. Thoreau's first rare book, published at his own expense.
Seller: Burnside Rare Books, ABAA, Portland, OR, U.S.A.
Price: US$10000.00 + shipping
Condition: Near Fine
Description: First edition, one of 1000 copies. 413, [1, blank], [1, ad. for Walden: "Soon to be published"] pp. Hardcover, bound in brown cloth, housed in green morocco backed slipcase. Corners rubbed. Early owner's inscription; tanning on the fly leaves; the preliminary leaves with light foxing. Thoreau's first book.
Seller: Moroccobound Fine Books, IOBA, Lewis Center, OH, U.S.A.
THOREAU, Henry D.. Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. , 1849.
Price: US$10450.00 + shipping
Description: THOREAU, Henry D. A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. Original blind-ruled brown cloth, housed in custom brown morocco-backed slipcase with inner cloth chemise. Boston: James Munroe and Company, 1849. First edition of the author's first book. BAL 20104, Binding A, with the three blank lines on p. 396. Published at the author's expense in an edition of 1000 copies. It did not sell well and subsequently is very scarce. Spine repaired, light wear to corners, small hole to inner front hinge, ownership signature "Charles Glover Pond, Rochester, 1862" on title page, else very good.
Seller: G.S. MacManus Co., ABAA, Bryn Mawr, PA, U.S.A.
Price: US$15625.00 + shipping
Description: First edition, and one of only 1000 copies printed at Thoreau's own risk, 12mo, pp. 413, [3] including the advertisement leaf for Walden; a bit of slight chipping at the top of the spine, bottom of the spine slightly cracked (but the imprint "Munroe & Co." is preserved); otherwise, a very good, bright and sound copy, in BAL's brown cloth binding 'A' ("trade binding," no priority) with no cracking of the hinges. A better copy than most. Thoreau's first book, published at his own risk, and with Walden, the only book published in his lifetime. The book did not sell well and the publisher returned a remainder of 706 copies to him in October of 1853 which prompted Thoreau to write: "I have now a library of nearly nine hundred volumes, over seven hundred of which I wrote myself. Is it not well that the author should behold the fruits of his labor?" By April of 1862, Thoreau had disposed of 111 of these copies leaving just 595. These he sold to Ticknor and Fields, and 450 of these were subsequently reissued with a new title page, dated 1862. BAL 20104; Borst A1.1a.
Seller: Rulon-Miller Books (ABAA / ILAB), St. Paul, MN, U.S.A.
Thoreau, Henry David. A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. James Munroe & Company, 1849.
Price: US$23900.00 + shipping
Condition: Fine
Description: First edition of Thoreau s first book 1000 copies published at his own expense of which only 550 were bound - less than 300 were sold or given away by the publisher and Thoreau, and in 1853 the remainder was returned to him whereupon he hauled it up to his attic and sarcastically bemoaned the dismal sales. Top edge uncut. Minor wear to spine ends, minor sporadic foxing, lettering at spine foot rubbed off(a common occurrence with the wispy spine cloth), else a Fine, crisp copy with bright gilt. Scarce in this condition, even 100 years ago when this copy sold at auction.*** Ex-Jacob Chester Chamberlain, famed turn of the century collector with three lines of text dropped by the publisher penciled in his hand on page 396, along with his acquisition slip from another noted collector, Beverly Chew of the Grolier Club in New York City. Housed in an amazing contemporary custom pull off case with elaborate tooling, commissioned by Chamberlain, as was his custom for many of his most fantastic books. Sold at Anderson's 1st Editions of Ten American Authors Chamberlain auction of 1909 along with a myriad of rarities. Dead at 45 in 1905, Chamberlain amassed a par excellence collection of American literature - he held a magical wonderment for the choicest pieces.*** In the late summer of 1839, Thoreau and his older brother John made a two-week boat-and-hiking trip from Concord, Massachusetts, to the White Mountains of New Hampshire. After John's sudden death in 1842, Thoreau began to prepare a memorial account of their excursion. He wrote two drafts of this story at Walden Pond, which he continued to revise and expand until 1849, when he arranged for its publication at his own expense. The book's heterodoxy and apparent formlessness troubled its contemporary audience. Thoreau interweaves descriptions of natural phenomena, the rural landscape, and local characters with digressions on literature and philosophy, the Native American and Puritan histories of New England, the Bhagavad Gita, the imperfections of Christianity, and many other subjects. Modern readers, however, have come to see it as an appropriate predecessor to Walden, with Thoreau's story of a river journey depicting the early years of his spiritual and artistic growth."(Princeton)*** This copy also contains two contemporary ownership signatures - most interestingly one of a Roswell Foster - a reverend in the Concord/general New England area and a contemporary of Thoreau. A few notes in the book about landmarks would point to Foster's hand or at least someone else with intimate knowledge of the areas Thoreau traversed with his brother.Quite simply, a wonderful copy of a beautiful classic by an American legend.***Please email us for better pricing.
Seller: Anniroc Rare Books, Pasadena, CA, U.S.A.
Price: US$38000.00 + shipping
Condition: Fine
Description: First edition, first printing of the author's first book, which was published at his own expense. 413, [1], [1, ad for Walden: "Soon to be published"] pp. Bound in publisher's original trade binding with boards ruled in blind and spine decoratively stamped in blind and lettered in gilt, pale yellow endsheets. Small ownership bookplate of former Wall Street executive and 2016 Republican candidate for Vermont Governor Bruce Lisman to front pastedown, as well as the more contemporary ownership signature of William Ingersoll Bowditch dated 1862. Bowditch was a Boston lawyer who participated in the anti-slavery movement, aided freedom seekers on the Underground Railroad as a member of the Boston Vigilance Committee, and served as a leading figure in the Womans' Suffrage Movement. A Fine copy with remarkably bright pages, sharp gilt. Light rubbing to cloth, bruising to spine ends, fore edge cut by binder a little rough. A very bright and sharp copy, unusually nice and scarce thus; one would be hard-pressed to find a nicer copy. Housed in a custom slipcase.
Seller: Burnside Rare Books, ABAA, Portland, OR, U.S.A.