Abraham Lincoln.
Garden City, New York: Garden City Publishing Co., Inc., 1935. Hardcover. This is a jacketed 1935 reprint of Lord Charnwood’s landmark single-volume biography of America’s 16th president, Abraham Lincoln. The British first edition was published by Constable & Co. in 1916, followed by its American first edition counterpart, published by Henry Holt and Company in 1917. It sold well on both sides of the Atlantic, resulting in a number of subsequent printings and editions. This “Star Book” edition by Garden City Publishing Co. was in print from 1929-1939. A tiny “1235” on the lower dust jacket flap indicates that this is plausibly the December 1935 printing; the copyright page references only the date of the Holt first edition.
Condition is very good in a very good dust jacket. The black cloth binding is square and tight with minor shelf wear to extremities, including wrinkled spine ends. The contents, featuring deckled fore edges, are quite respectably clean. The only previous ownership marks we find are notes at the head of the blank side of the frontispiece in pencil referring to six different instances within the text, with page references. We have left these unerased. A tiny, vintage bookseller’s ticket printed in black on silver – “Travers Book Store” of “Trenton, N.J.” - is affixed to the lower rear pastedown. Light spotting appears confined to the final, blank leaves and rear pastedown. The fore and bottom edges of the text block are clean, the top edges a little dusty. The endpapers also show differential toning to the endpapers, corresponding to the dust jacket flaps and confirming that this copy has spent life jacketed. The illustrated dust jacket printed in orange and black on tan paper is substantially complete, with only minor loss to the spine and flap fold extremities, though moderately soiled and toned. The dust jacket is protected beneath a clear, removable, archival cover.
English politician and writer Godfrey Rathbone Benson, first Baron Charnwood (1864–1945) was educated at Oxford and appointed lecturer in philosophy at Balliol before he became a Liberal Member of Parliament. He was elevated in June 1911 as Baron Charnwood of Castle Donington, Leicestershire, thereafter serving in the House of Lords for three and a half decades. “His biography of Abraham Lincoln (1916) was widely praised for its 'originality … keen analysis and literary facility' (Thomas, 209–10) and it changed the historical approach to Lincoln's life, with an emphasis on interpretation of the acts of his administration rather than idolatry.” It was noteworthy for a number of reasons, among them the perspective brought to the American leader by an Englishman, and for being published during the First World War, and thereby serving as a symbol of democratic ideals shared by Britain and America. Though superseded in part by subsequent scholarship, it remains a well-regarded portrait. Item #009014
Price: $75.00