Philadelphia: Published by John Sartain & Co., January-August 1852 (volume 10, number 1-volume 11, number 2). Octavo, eight issues, pp. 516; 208, illustrations, several in color, publisher's original cloth lettered in gold, decorated in blind. The final issues of this major nineteenth-century American monthly magazine of prose and verse that ceased publication with the August 1852 issue. The May 1852 issue includes "A Voyage in a Balloon" by Jules Verne, translated from the French by Anne T. Wilbur, being THE FIRST TRANSLATION OF A VERNE STORY INTO ENGLISH. Additionally, the July and August issues collect "The Iron Horse" and "A Poet Buying a Farm," two sections of the yet unpublished WALDEN by Henry David Thoreau. The main contributor to these issues is Charles G. Leland, the magazine's book reviewer, who seems to have acted as assistant editor in charge of various departments. Other contributors include the prolific Carey sisters, Alice and Phoebe, Christopher P. Cranch, Edward Everett Hale, John T. Trowbridge, R. H. Stoddard, William Gilmore Simms, and dozens of totally forgotten poets. John Sartain (1808-1897) "was an English-born American artist who pioneered mezzotint engraving in the United States ... In 1848, he purchased a half interest in the UNION MAGAZINE, a New York-based periodical. He transferred it to Philadelphia, where it was renamed SARTAIN'S UNION MAGAZINE, and from 1849–1852 he published it with Graham (He engraved plates in 1841-1848 for GRAHAM'S MAGAZINE, published by George Rex Graham, and believed his work was responsible for the publication's sudden success)" (Wikipedia). Mott I, pp. 769-772. Borst D40 and D41. Taves and Michaluk V012. Cloth lightly worn at spine ends and corner tips, the usual scattered foxing and tanning to text paper and plates -- as is almost always the case. The color plates are largely clean. There may be plates missing, but the quite inaccurate index does not list some plates present here or some possibly missing. This volume is scarce in the original cloth. (#170276).
Price: $1,500.00
No statement of printing.