Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Letters and Social Aims. James R. Osgood and Company - Boston, 1876.
Price: US$175.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: Original terracotta colored cloth on boards with blind stamped ruling around border of front and back and gilt lettering and publishers device to spine. Small book is mostly tight, square, relatively sharp-cornered and free of major flaws and markings inside and out, other than a crack down the gutter of ffep on the brown endpapers and moderate fading to the titling on spine. This is the First Edition, First Printing with the relevant points of that condition: Signature mark N present on page 209; with "inviolate" and "choices" on page 308 (changed respectively in the second and third printings to "inviolable" and "choice"). "This was the last volume of essay published during Emerson's lifetime. By the 1870s, Emerson had faded and 'gradually slipped into a serene senility in which his mind finally became a calm blank' (OCAL). "A longtime friend, James Elliot Cabot, was enlisted by the family to help put Emerson's literary manuscripts in order and prepare his lectures for delivery and his writings for publication. Cabot and Emerson's daughter Ellen put together a final volume of essays, Letters and Social Aims (1876), some reprinted ('The Comic,' 'Quotation and Originality,' and 'Persian Poetry') and others drawn from Emerson's manuscripts ('Poetry and Imagination,' 'Social Aims,' 'Eloquence,' 'Resources,' 'Progress of Culture,' 'Inspiration,' 'Greatness,' and 'Immortality').
Seller: Barberry Lane Booksellers, Bar Harbor, ME, U.S.A.
EMERSON, RALPH WALDO.. Letters and Social Aims. Boston: James R. Osood, 1876, 1876.
Price: US$8500.00 + shipping
Description: First Edition; BAL's probable earliest state of page 209. Front hinge cracked; some cloth wear; very good. Presentation copy; inscribed by the author near publication day, 'Miss Jerusha A. Gardner/ With respects of/ R. Waldo Emerson/ January, 1876.' All books described as first editions are first printings unless otherwise noted.
Seller: Peter L. Stern & Co., Inc, Newton, MA, U.S.A.
EMERSON Ralph Waldo. Letters and Social Aims. , 1876.
Price: US$11000.00 + shipping
Description: "EMERSON, Ralph Waldo. Letters and Social Aims. Boston: James R. Osgood, 1876 [i.e. 1875]. Octavo, original terracotta cloth. Housed in a half morocco chemise and full morocco slipcase. $11,000.First edition, first printing, association copy, of the last volume of essays published during Emerson's lifetime, bearing the ownership signature of Emerson's neighbor, Jeanie M. LeBrun, and additionally signed for her by Emerson and dated by him in the year of publication, "6 Jan 1876."This was the last volume of essay published during Emerson's lifetime. By the 1870s, Emerson had faded and "gradually slipped into a serene senility in which his mind finally became a calm blank" (OCAL). "A longtime friend, James Elliot Cabot, was enlisted by the family to help put Emerson's literary manuscripts in order and prepare his lectures for delivery and his writings for publication Cabot and Emerson's daughter Ellen put together a final volume of essays, Letters and Social Aims (1876), some reprinted ('The Comic,' 'Quotation and Originality,' and 'Persian Poetry') and others drawn from Emerson's manuscripts ('Poetry and Imagination,' 'Social Aims,' 'Eloquence,' 'Resources,' 'Progress of Culture,' 'Inspiration,' 'Greatness,' and 'Immortality') Emerson died quietly in Concord and was buried at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, close to the graves of the Alcotts, Hawthornes, and Thoreaus" (ANB). First printing, with "N" on page 209 and with "inviolate" and "choices" on page 308 (changed respectively in the second and third printings to "inviolable" and "choice"). Though this work is dated 1876, the first printing took place on December 16, 1875 and was first advertised on Christmas of that year in Publisher's Weekly. Myerson A43.1a. BAL 5272. This copy belonged to and bears the ownership signature of Jean M. LeBrun, a Concord neighbor of the Emersons, as well as the Thoreaus, Alcotts, and Hawthornes. LeBrun's signature is dated Christmas day, just days after publication, suggesting that this book may have been a gift to herone that she embellished by securing Emerson's signature. LeBrun would later attain her own minor fame for a piece she wrote to the Boston Advertiser in 1883 (later separately published in booklet form) that responded to the 1882 first book-length biography of Thoreau. The biography was written by Frank B. Sanborn, yet another Concord neighbor who worked as a schoolteacher instructing the children of Emerson, Hawthorne, and James. Sanborn also proposed to Emerson's daughter, Edith, who rejected him. In his biography of Thoreau, Sanborn presented an unflattering and ungenerous portrait of Thoreau's mother. Jean LeBrun, in her piece for the Advertiser undertook to defend both Thoreau and his mother posthumously.Interior with only a couple faint stains, light rubbing to extremities of binding. A near-fine copy."
Seller: Bauman Rare Books, Philadelphia, PA, U.S.A.
EMERSON, Ralph Waldo. LETTERS AND SOCIAL AIMS. Osgood, Boston, 1876.
Price: US$25000.00 + shipping
Description: Original terra cotta cloth. BAL 5272: Signature mark N present on page 209; Myerson A34.1.a: correct readings on page 308. Myerson also notes that "Emerson was greatly assisted in compiling this volume by James Elliot Cabot and Ellen Emerson." This copy is INSCRIBED and SIGNED by the author: "J. Elliot Cabot, Esq./His book/R. W. Emerson/14 Dec. 1875." Below the inscription, likely in Cabot's hand, is the following: "This, Miss Ellen Emerson says, was the first copy that came to him from the publisher." Myerson states that 5000 copies were printed 15 December 1875, the same day the book was advertised as being published that day in a Boston newspaper. There are also five pages with comments or corrections in pencil in Cabot's hand as well as notes filling about a third of one of the rear blanks. In addition to his work on this book, Cabot was also a secretary for Emerson as well as a longtime friend and his first biographer. Association copies of this magnitude of Emerson's books are very few and far between. The rear hinge is broken and the front hinge is ready to go with some external splitting there as well. The spine tips are frayed. Good example of one of the finest Emerson Presentation copies extant
Seller: Charles Agvent, est. 1987, ABAA, ILAB, Fleetwood, PA, U.S.A.