The Rare First American Edition
Waverley; or, 'Tis Sixty Years Since … Three Volumes in Two.
New York: Van Winkle and Wiley, 1815.
Price: $3,000.00
About the item
First American edition. 292; 248 pp. 2 vols. 8vo. The Rare First American Edition. Contemporary half calf and marbled boards, later red morocco and calf spine labels. Rebacked, preserving spines, some spotting and staining to text, paper toned. Previous owner's signature to flyleaves. Todd & Bowden 77Ri; PMM 273; Shaw & Shoemaker 35881 (3 locations).
Item #303867
This first of the famous Waverley Novels was published anonymously, and Scott did not officially acknowledge writing it until the 1820s. With this novel, Scott virtually invented a new literary form, leaving behind the extreme artificiality of the Gothic novel and rooting his fiction in fact. As PMM summarizes, "Walter Scott became the creator of the historical novel almost by accident."
There were Boston and New York printings of Waverley in 1815; Todd calls this Van Winkle & Wiley ed. "Apparently the first American edition”.
