Home / Browse / Americana / Life of Wm. Tecumseh Sherman, Late Retired General, U.S.A. - a Publisher's Blad.
JOHNSON, W. Fletcher.
Life of Wm. Tecumseh Sherman, Late Retired General, U.S.A. - a Publisher's Blad.
A salesman's sample for this highly successful biography. Mounted on the front pastedown is the upper board of the Autograph Edition - "in Extra English Cloth … in a chaste English style, to meet the want of people of culture, who will desire the Life of General Sherman … in really choice style, rather than showy" - and on the rear pastedown the spine of the Half-Russia style, "very handsome." In all, four binding styles were offered, priced between $1.50 for Fine English Cloth, to $2.50 "In Full Morocco, gilt edges, (quite elegant.)" Contains 100 pages of sample text; 11 plates including the portrait frontispiece which in the published version "will be replaced … by a superior Steel Plate being engraved from the same Photograph;" a double-page promotional flyer, "A Marvellous March from the Mountains of Time to the Sea of Eternity;" and blank sheets for subscriber's names at the rear. Johnson was a popular lecturer and author, having previously written books on Stanley's expeditions to Africa, the Jonestown Flood, and Sitting Bull and the Indian Wars. He was on the staff of the New York Tribune for 50 years, for twenty of them being the foreign and diplomatic editorial writer. Unusual and attractive publishing promotional item.
Octavo. Original yellow ochre cloth with decoration in black and gilt including a portrait in an oval cartouche on the upper board, green floral-sprigged endpapers. Housed in a black quarter morocco on marbled paper book-style slip-case, red morocco label to the spine. 11 plates. A little rubbed, corners bumped, head and tail of the spine slightly crumpled, very good.
