Grand Concert in Aid of the Russian Jewish Refugees, Monday Eve’g, March 27, ’82, by the Handel and Haydn Society, in conjunction with Salem Oratorio Society, Lynn Choral Union, Taunton Beethoven Society, A Grand Orchestra…. Boston: Printed By Jewish Watchman Print[ers], 1882

This is the rare original announcement and program for a major early benefit concert supporting Jewish refugees from Russia. The concert was held at Mechanics Hall in Boston in 1882. The featured conductors are Carl Zerrahn and George Henschel. Henschel had become the first conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra a year earlier. Here he leverages his position to support Jewish refugees.

$1,900

The Prince and the Pauper. Boston: James R. Osgood, 1882

FIRST EDITION. A departure from Twain’s previous novels, this tale of sixteenth-century England was intended as a work for children and the family circle.

$1,100

Specimen Days & Collect. Philadelphia: David McKay, 1882-'83

FIRST EDITION, second printing, first issue. Thomas Harned’s copy, with his bookplate. Whitman’s friend Harned was one of the poet’s literary executors, alog with Horace Traubel and Richard B. Bucke.

$800

Leaves of Grass. Boston: Osgood, 1881-82

First printing of the 7th edition of Leaves of Grass

$1,500

Walt Whitman … to which is added English Critics on Walt Whitman edited by Edward Dowden. Glasgow: Wilson and McCormick, 1884

FIRST EDITION, first British issue, comprising the American sheets (1883) plus a new section (pp. 237-255), Dowden’s work on the English critics of Whitman.

$800

Autograph manuscript signed “Walt Whitman on the Poets.”. No place, [1885]

In this fascinating manuscript Whitman provides a newspaper with an article defending himself against attacks that he did not respect the great American poets of the day.

$7,500

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Tom Sawyer’s Comrade). New York: Webster, 1885

FIRST AMERICAN EDITION, with all of the first state text points found in cloth copies. A variety of errors were discovered and corrected during the course of printing the first edition, and collectors have always preferred the earliest, uncorrected states.

$16,000

Autograph note signed to John H. Johnston. Camden, March 7, 1887

Whitman writes to his good friend and benefactor John H. Johnston, the New York jeweler, evidently congratulating him on the birth of his child: “Bless the dear baby, & all babies – Love to you & wife, Walt Whitman.”

$6,500

Liberty’s Torch in Madison Square Park. no publisher, negative ca. 1876, made from a print, late 19th century.

The torch of the Statue of Liberty was exhibited in Madison Square Park, New York to raise funds for the statue’s completion.  The torch remained in the park from 1876 through 1882.

$1,800

Splendid album containing 50 watercolors, 70 photographs, and fine calligraphic selections of poems and prose. Mostly Possingworth and environs, 1879 - ca. 1905

This magnificent, imposing album was made by a prominent late-Victorian hostess, patron of the arts, and gifted amateur artist. Helen Rose Huth was the wife of the banker Louis Huth. The Huths were major art collectors, and Helen sat for both George Frederic Watts and James Abbott McNeill Whistler who painted the celebrated “Arrangement in Black, No. 2: Portrait of Mrs Louis Huth.”

$16,000