THE LIFE OF GEORGE WASHINGTON
First edition of this classic biography of the first president of the United States, including the scarce atlas volume.
Very good plus.
Price: $7,000.00
THE LIFE OF GEORGE WASHINGTON
"As if the chosen instrument of Heaven, selected for the purpose of effecting the great designs of Providence [...] it was the peculiar lot of this distinguished man, at every epoch when the destinies of his country seemed dependent on the measures adopted, to be called by the united voice of his fellow citizens to the high stations on which the success of those measures principally depended."
John Marshall started work on this epic biography — the first to be written about any US president — soon after he was appointed to the United States Supreme Court, and partly at the urging of his colleague Bushrod Washington, George's nephew. Bushrod gave Marshall access to George Washington's papers and correspondence, lending the work an authority that allows it "still to pass current for solid coin," in historian William A. Foran's words (52). Indeed, it remains a key work in the construction of the US identity based on one of the nation's greatest heroes.
Copies of this work are often seen lacking the atlas volume, which also contains a list of the supporters of this publication organized by state. An elegant set.
Read more: William A. Foran, "John Marshall as a Historian," The American Historical Review 43(1); Wright Howes, U.S.iana, item M317; Sabin, Bibliotheca Americana, item 44788; Shaw and Shoemaker, American Bibliography, item 6710; William Reese, The Revolutionary Hundred, item 92.
The Object
Philadelphia: C. P. Wayne, 1804, 1805, 1807. 8.75'' x 5.25'' (vols 1-5); 11'' x 8.5'' (atlas). Six volumes total. Modern quarter calf, marbled boards, red goatskin spine labels; sixth volume with original paper label retained. Marbled edges. Volume 1 with engraved frontispiece; atlas volume with ten engraved maps. xxii, [2], 43; viii, 560, 72; viii, 580, 28; viii, 626, [2], 16; viii, 780, 36; 22 pages, collated complete. Stamp of the Mercantile Library Association to title page of atlas. Bindings with occasional touches of edgewear. Frontispiece and plates with some offsetting, leaves generally browned with scattered foxing; a few leaves with tiny closed tears to margins, one or two pencil marks. P. 533/4 of vol. 3 torn on a diagonal, effecting some text (though entirely legible), with archival repair across leaf; large chip to lower corner (not effecting text). Page 21/22 of atlas volume with lower corner supplied in facsimile, affecting a small portion of text. Clean and tight.
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