M & S Rare Books

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With a Halleck Book Contract: His Biographer's Own Copy

 

(HALLECK). WILSON, JAMES GRANT. The Life and Letters of Fitz-Greene Halleck. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1869. 1st trade edition. 8vo. 607 pp., plus ads. Port. Later blue half morocco, spine gilt stamped; blue cloth-covered endpapers. A very good copy. $950.00

 

BAL 7001, with a tipped-in note by General Wilson indicating he purchased the volume "at the sale of the Sedgwick Library" in 1877. Whether any of the inserted autograph material was then present we do not know, but most is written to Wilson at a later date.

Tipped in on the first binder's blank is a written proposal: "...to Stereotype, print and publish and endeavor to sell your Poems in one volume 12mo..." with a 50/50 split on profits after expenses, signed "J[ustus] S[tarr] Redfield," and dated April 12, 1852. Endorsed on the verso on the same date: "I agree to the terms herein mentioned, Fitz-Greene Halleck."

BAL records three Redfield editions of Halleck's poems, published 1852-53-54, evidently a successful relationship. In 1869 Wilson also edited The Poetical Writings of Fitz-Greene Halleck, a work which included material "included in previous editions" (BAL 7000).

Also inserted are letters to General Wilson from Horatio Gates Jones and a fine two page letter from the journalist W.L. Stone, who contributed to at least one of Wilson's later works.