Photographic Views of Sherman’s Campaign, embracing scenes of the occupation of Nashville, the great battles around Chattanooga and Lookout Mountain, the campaign of Atlanta, march to the sea, and the great raid through the Carolinas. [New York: Press of Wynkoop & Hallenbeck], [1866]

FIRST EDITION. George N. Barnard’s Photographic Views of Sherman’s Campaign is, together with Alexander Gardner’s Photographic Sketch Book, one of the two greatest photographic monuments of the Civil War. Its 61 original mounted photographs include some of the most famous images of the war.

$390,000

On the Origin of Species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life.. London: John Murray, 1866

FOURTH EDITION. On the Origin of Species is “certainly the greatest biological book ever written” (Freeman) and “the most important single work in science” (Dibner).

Please Inquire

The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, and Other Sketches. C. H. Webb, New York, 1867

FIRST EDITION, FIRST PRINTING. One of only 1000 copies.

$16,000

Poems … selected and edited by William Michael Rossetti. London: John Camden Hotten, 1868

FIRST ENGLISH EDITION of Whitman’s poems.

$850

Profile bust portrait of Charles Darwin, signed by Cameron. London: Colnaghi, 1868

The great Darwin portrait, Julia Margaret Cameron’s 1868 profile of Darwin is probably the most famous photograph of a 19th-century scientist. Darwin remarked, “I like this photograph very much better than any other which has been taken of me.”

$52,000

View of Rome from the Tiber River with Castel Sant’Angelo and Saint Peter’s Basilica. Rome, ca. 1870

$4,500

United States Capitol. no publisher, c. 1870

This dramatic photograph of the United States Capitol shows the building in the 1870s, after the completion of the new dome and the extensions.

$2,500

Works. Chapman and Hall, [1870s]

A very handsome set of the famous “Illustrated Library Edition,” here in an early printing. The dedication at the front of the first volume (Pickwick Papers) states, “This the best edition of my books is, of right, inscribed to my dear friend John Forster, biographer of Oliver Goldsmith, in affectionate acknowledgment of his counsel, sympathy, and faithful friendship during my whole literary life.” “The Library Edition came about largely because of the suggestion of Forster that while Dickens’s works were available in volumes in the Cheap Edition and in reprints of the serial parts, there was no high-quality edition that would appeal to the wealthy. Dickens eventually came round to the idea that an elegant edition could raise the stature of his writings.

$3,500

Autograph letter signed to F. P. Church.. Washington, 1871

In this fine, boldly penned letter, Walt Whitman sends the manuscript of his poem “The Mystic Trumpeter” for possible publication in the January 1872 number of The Galaxy. Whitman would include the poem in the final edition of Leaves of Grass (1891).

$8,500

Extra. Senseless Panic. New York: New York Daily Bulletin, September 24, 1873

The Panic of 1873 was set off by the failure of Jay Cooke & Co., the leading American banker of its day. Because of financial crises in Europe , the Credit Mobilier scandal, and related problems, the firm declared bankruptcy on September 18, 1873. The bank’s failure set of a chain of events including the failure of many insurance companies and banks and the ten-day closure of the New York Stock Exchange starting on September 20. Within two months 55 railroads had failed. The downturn, which lasted for the rest of the decade, was known as the Great Depression until the 1930s depression took that name.

$400