Changing Base. Or, What Edward Rice Learnt in School

Boston: Lea and Shepard, 1868. First Edition. 8vo, burgundy cloth, 282 pp. First edition. With four plates. Very Good. A bright first edition copy of the second novel to ever feature baseball, and the first to use baseball in the title and design of the book. William Everett was the cousin of Edward Everett Hale and the son of the orator Edward Everett. He wrote this book shortly after graduating from Harvard’s law department. He would return later to Harvard to teach latin. This book has two and a half chapters of baseball content. The first novel with baseball content was 1865,"Uncle Nat; or, The Good Time Which George and Frank Had, Trapping, Fishing, Camping Out, etc." by Alfred Oldfellow, published two years earlier. A bright, very good plus copy with some wear to head and heel of spine and a gift inscription from the year of publication, 1868, on a preliminary page.