PEEKE, Hewson L.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Americana Ebrietatis: First edition, presentation copy, inscribed by the printer on the front free endpaper to the legendary New York book dealer, "To Mr. Gabriel Wells with compliments of Lewis M. Thompson, Apr. 16th 1917. Proof copy - interesting for its faults as most of us are for our sins". The edition size was otherwise one hundred copies.A recent reprint of a 1723 work on the London drinking scene, Ebrietatis Encomium, led Thompson to print this work, a history of American drunkenness and drinking, the liquor traffic, and temperance societies. It was authored by Hewson Peeke (1861-1942), a staunch prohibitionist who ran twice for Congress in Ohio for the Prohibition Party. "The research represents the culling of some four hundred volumes" (preface).The recipient, Wells (1861-1946), was one of the most important rare books dealers of the century, handling many of the major books that were sold in the early decades, including a Gutenberg bible which he split to sell as individual leaves and the jewelled Rubaiyat which went down with the Titanic. Wells was himself opposed to prohibition, and published Democracy and Prohibition in 1927, which argued for a national referendum on the subject, believing it would lead to its repeal. Though unmarked as such, the book passed along with other of Wells's books to his nephew, the publisher Frank Dobo.

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