Celia Baxter (1 results)

Hardcover. Condition: Fair. 1st Edition. An Island Garden. By Celia Thaxter. With Pictures and Illuminations by Childe Hassam. Sarah Wyman Whitman cover design. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1894. First Edition, First Issue. All plates and illuminations present & intact (22 total, complete). 126 pp, 9.25 x 6.75", 8vo. ***Included with purchase is a Facsimile of the First Reissue from 1988 with an introduction by Allen Lacy. (In very good condition. Like New.) In fair condition. Cream cloth boards normally scuffed at edges and worn/bumped at corners. Head and tail of spine bumped; cloth exhibits a few some chips. Gilt deco on front board overall bright and clean; gilt lettering on spine dulled, but legible. Line of age-staining found on rear board, parallel to rear hinge. Small water or tea dampness stain exhibited on tail of spine (does not appear to have impacted text-block). Top edge gilt; fore-edge deckled. Previous ownership gift inscription (in ink) found on front end-page and fly-leaf dated June 6, 1894. Light toning throughout text-block; mostly at edges of leaves. Some light off-setting on tissue guards from respective plates. Some sparse instances of age-staining, mostly around plates and illuminations. Leaf containing pages 23-4 lightly chipped around all edges. Binding intact. Please see photos and ask questions, if any, before purchasing. Celia Thaxter (née Laighton; 1835 1894) was an American writer of poetry and stories. For most of her life, she lived with her father on the Isles of Shoals at his Appledore Hotel. Thaxter became one of America's favorite authors in the late 19th century. Among her best-known poems are The Burgomaster Gull, Landlocked, Milking, The Great White Owl, The Kingfisher", and The Sandpiper. Many of her romantic poems are addressed to women; as such, she has been identified by some scholars as a lesbian poet. Sarah Wyman Whitman (1842-1904) was an American stained glass artist, painter, and book cover designer. Successful at a time when few women had professional art careers, she founded her own firm, Lily Glass Works. As a member of the board of the Harvard University "Annex," she helped to found Radcliffe College. Whitman's artistic training was rather short. She began her artistic training at the age of 26 in Boston with William Morris Hunt and William Rimmer, one of their earliest women students. Frederick Childe Hassam (1859 1935) was an American Impressionist painter, noted for his urban and coastal scenes. Along with Mary Cassatt and John Henry Twachtman, Hassam was instrumental in promulgating Impressionism to American collectors, dealers, and museums. He produced over 3,000 paintings, oils, watercolors, etchings, and lithographs over the course of his career, and was an influential American artist of the early 20th century. During the summers, he would work in a more typical Impressionist location, such as Appledore Island, the largest of the Isles of Shoals off New Hampshire, then famous for its artist colony. Social life on the island revolved around the salon of poet Celia Thaxter who hosted artists and literary figures. The group was a "jolly, refined, interesting and artistic set of people.like one large family." There Hassam recalled, "I spent some of my pleasantest summers.(and) where I met the best people in the country." Hassam's subjects for his paintings included Thaxter's flower garden, the rocky landscape, and some interior scenes rendered with his most impressionistic brush strokes to date. In Impressionist fashion, he applied his colors "perfectly clear out of the tube" to unprimed canvas without pre-mixing. Artists displayed their work in Thaxter's salon and were exposed to wealthy buyers staying on the island. Thaxter died in 1894, and in tribute Hassam painted her parlor in The Room of Flowers. First Edition in original decorated cream cloth binding designed by Sarah Wyman Whitman. GIFT QUALITY. RAREA1894HUVC 07/24 - HK1827.