LETTERS AND SOCIAL AIMS

Boston: Osgood, 1876. First Edition. Hardcover. 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. 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.