Books

1865. [the E.R. Hoar / Doheny copy] Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1865. 24 pp ads dated Dec 1864. Original blind-stamped purple cloth with gilt-decorated spine. First Edition, first printing, which consisted of only 2,000 or 2,040 copies (of which some were sent to England to be issued with a cancel title page) -- printed in December 1864, but not actually published until late March 1865. Edited by the younger William Ellery Channing and by Thoreau's sister Sophia, this was the fifth Thoreau book, preceded by A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS, WALDEN, and the posthumous EXCURSIONS and THE MAINE WOODS. There were four different bindings used (differing in blind-stamping and in "author of" spine verbiage), and in seven different colors and grains of cloth -- without known priority; this copy is in Blanck's "binding A," and is in purple "Z" (triangular-grain) cloth. This is a bright, near-fine copy (a trace of wear at the spine ends); the spine has generally browned -- as…

Cape Cod is a collection of essays by Henry David Thoreau based on his experiences and observations while traveling to Cape Cod, Massachusetts.