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The American Book of Beauty, Or, Token of Friendship. A Gift for All Seasons. Edited by A Lady. Hartford: Silas Andrus and Son, n.d. C. 1845. 128 p, 7 plates (complete). 10 x 6 , 8vo. Reissue of The American Book of Beauty. New York: Wilson & Co., 1845. In fair condition. Boards scuffed at edges and worn/bumped at corners. Hinges cracked; boards attached via cording only - FRAGILE. Head and tail of spine LACKING with exposed binding. Gilt deco on boards overall bright and clean; gilt lettering and deco on spine severely rubbed/soiled - illegible. All edges of text-block gilt (dulled). Toning and age-staining through text-block; off-setting on tissue guards & leaves adjacent to plates. Hand-colored frontispiece bright and attractive. Binding intact; hinges cracked. Please see photos. While there's a good deal of talk about love and marriage plus plenty of advice on how to conduct yourself in the marriage state, there are also tales about demented women, unhappy marriages, undertakers, and body snatchers. Also a story on The Rat Tower: Sometime in the tenth century, so the story goes, a great famine hit the Rhine valley. The summer and fall seasons had been so wet that the grain rotted in the fields before the farmers could harvest. As winter hit, they ran out their food stores; they were starving. Desperate, they turned to Hatto, the wealthy Archbishop of Mainz, whose granaries were filled to overflowing. Some stories say that Hatto charged the people such a steep price for the grain that they began to rebel. Some stories say he was just sick of their begging. Either way, Hatto finally announced that everyone without food should come to his barn on a certain day, and he would give them grain. On that day, people came from all over the countryside, and filled the bishop s barn until it couldn t hold a single more person. Then Hatto ordered the barn doors locked and set fire to the barn, burning all the peasants to death. I faith, tis an excellent bonfire! quoth he, And the country is greatly obliged to me For ridding it, in these times forlorn, Of rats that only consume the corn. Then Hatto went home to a good dinner, retired to bed, and slept like a baby. The next morning, the servants ran to the Bishop and reported that ten thousand rats had eaten all the corn in the granaries, and were now converging on the Bishop s palace. Terrified, the Bishop had himself rowed out to his stronghold, a tower on an island in the middle of the Rhine. The rats dove into the river, swam to the island, swarmed the tower, and ate the bishop alive. Interesting content for a gift book. FORN-TUB-0088-XX-2508-HK2643.
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