Oliver Wendell Holmes' copy
The Varieties of Human Greatness. A Discourse on the Life and Character of the Hon. Nathaniel Bowditch … delivered in the Church on Church Green, March 25, 1838.
Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1838.
Price: $600.00
About the item
Pp. 119, [120 with printers imprint only]. Wood engraving by N. B. Devereux. 1 vols. 8vo. Oliver Wendell Holmes' copy. Original brown printed wrappers. Lower wrapper lacking, some chipping of spine and edges, upper outer corner torn affecting two letters in inscription, some spotting and soiling of text, especially pages 60-66, otherwise mostly marginal and light, a very good copy from Carroll A. Wilson's collection with his bookplate.
Item #34245
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES' COPY. Inscribed on the upper wrapper “Dr. O. W. Holmes with Mr. Young's respec[ts]. RARE, according to Wilson in his catalogue “Because of its preservation in 296 Beacon Street and (by Justice Holmes' bequest) in the library of Congress, BOOKS FROM HOLMES' LIBRARY ARE ALMOST NON-EXISTANT IN PRIVATE HANDS” Holmes was teaching anatomy at Dartmouth at this time.
Alexander Young was an antiquary as well as Unitarian minister. He published “The Library of the Old English Prose Writers ” and “Chronicles of the First Planters of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay from 1623 to 1636” as well as several eulogies on eminent Bostonians and other works. A bibliophile, he, with Charles Sumner, Jared Sparks, Edward A. Crowninshield, James Savage, Charles Deane, George Ticknor and sometimes Longfellow would meet at the Old Corner Book Store to discuss books. On the two pages is an anonymous poem signed “T” entitled “Elegy on the death of Doctor Bowditch” which had appeared in the Boston Daily Advertiser of March 22.
