THACKERAY, William Makepeace.

£975 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

The Works. An early American edition of Thackeray's collected works. This set is from the library of the politician Leverett Saltonstall II (1825-1895), with his bookplates, as well as an inscription on the third binder's blank of most volumes, "Leverett Saltonstall, from his sister Anne, March 16th, 1875."The Saltonstalls were a Boston Brahmin family who have had a family member attend Harvard University from every generation since Nathaniel Saltonstall (1639-1707). Richard, son of Leverett II, was a classmate of Theodore Roosevelt, who would maintain a friendship with the family and wrote to Leverett II as "Uncle Leverett". Nathaniel was a judge during the witch trials, and Leverett I was the first mayor of Salem. Thackeray had a good relationship with the United States, visiting for two lecture tours in the 1850s on the subject of English humourists. Moreover, the author's "encounters with American publishers, who had republished his early work at will, were remarkably different from those by Charles Dickens and later Anthony Trollope who both lost their tempers over their lack of control of American publications. Thackeray, acknowledging that half a loaf was better than no loaf, laughed and befriended James Fields in Boston, George Putnam in Philadelphia, and, in New York, the Appletons and the biggest pirates of them all, the Harper Brothers." (ODNB)This set is pleasingly illustrated with numerous plates and vignettes, many after drawings by Thackeray himself. Modern edi

Found via Rare Books Intel, a search across rare-book dealers, auction houses and marketplaces worldwide.