Adams, Henry:

$50,000 · Offered by William Reese Company

THE EDUCATION OF HENRY ADAMS. First edition and likely second printing of what by anyone's measure is one of the great American books, privately published for distribution among friends and family, with this copy bearing a presentation inscription, likely dating to the period following Adams' stroke in 1912, from Adams to his friend and Lafayette Square neighbor Edith Eustis. A strong case has been made that Adams initially had forty copies printed for distribution within a small circle of interested readers whose feedback he solicited and then had a supplementary printing of sixty copies made at a later date, possibly as late as 1913 or 1914, to satisfy the additional demand from family and friends. The distinction between the two printings is only possible by inscriptions or provenance: most copies of the first printing were distributed in the period following the book's initial publication in February 1907, while copies from the later printing would have been included among those presented by Adams in the later years, prior to his death in 1918.The Education has been described as "one of the great American autobiographies....a rewarding book and an American classic" (Reese). Written in the third person, it serves in part as an exploration of the ways in which Adams' traditional education had proved inadequate to the technical and social challenges facing the modern world. An heir to one of America's most distinguished political families, Henry Adams (1838–1918) was the gra

• Printing: first

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