Letters to Various Persons.

Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1865. 12mo, publisher’s purple cloth, gilt title, ornament, etc. at spine, brown coated endpapers. [iv], 229 pp.

First edition. In BAL’s binding A, with “Author of Excursions and A Week on the Concord River” on spine and imprint at foot spine reading “Ticknor & Co.” A memorial collection of Thoreau’s letters and poems edited by Ralph Waldo Emerson and published three years after the author’s death. The letters are addressed to semi-anonymous correspondents, such as Mr. B., Mr. W., Mr. A., Mrs L. C. B. etc. The “Editor’s Notice,” signed R. W. E., states that the “letters have been printed directly from the original autographs furnished by the persons to whom they were addressed,” and “In some letters, passages have been omitted on account of private or personal references.” The majority of the letters were written from Concord, Mass., Staten Island, NY, and Redwing, Minnesota, with dates ranging from 1840 to 1862. Also included are the following nine poems: Sympathy; Romans, Countrymen, and Lovers; Inspiration; The Fisher’s Boy; Mountains; Smoke; Smoke in Winter; Mist, and Haze.

REFERENCES: BAL 20116.

CONDITION: Good, spine slightly cocked, head of spine chipped, small loss to foot of spine, creases to corners of a few leaves, a few light brown stains to margins of a few pages, large pencil ownership inscription dated 1868 on front free endpaper.