Dana James Signed (3 results)

Condition: VERY GOOD. 1st trade paperback printing. A collection of 75 poems, reflecting the diversity of America - from Sherman Alexie and Ai through to Lewis Warsh and Charles Wright. Also includes contributions from Jorie Graham, Allen Ginsberg, Derek Walcott, Jayne Cortez, Donald Hall and many others. David Lehman is the series editor.Õ SIGNED by THREE poets - Billy Collins at "Lines Lost Among Trees," Gillian Conoley at " The Sky Drank In." and Dana Gioia at "The Litany." Includes extensive contributors' notes and comments and a cumulative series index. 269 pp. Very good in wrappers (corner slightly bumped.).…

No Binding. Condition: Very Good. The Reflection and Prospect of a Christian Minister at the close of life. A sermon preached in the City of New Haven, July 29, 1787. Being the Lord's Day after the Funeral of the Reverend Chauncey Whittelsey, pastor of the First Church in that City; who died July 24, 1787, in the 70th year of his age, and the 30th of his Ministry. By James Dana, D.D. Senior Pastor of the First Church in Wallingford. New Haven. Printed by Daniel Bowen. 1787. No binding. First page is the half title page. Remains of leather on the spine. Text block tight. 30 pages plus a blank final page. Measures 4.5 x 7.25 inches. Margins trimmed quite close, slicing off the outer serifs on the first page, but no full words. Signed on the half title page by the author, Rev. Dana, "Andrew Eliot's from the Rev'd Author. 1787." Pages clean, though toned from age. Corners square. Mild foxing. The author, James Dana was the pastor of the first church in New Haven, where he ministered from 1789 until 1805. Before arriving in New Haven he was ordained and made pastor in Wallingford (to replace Rev. Whittelsey) but he never took over the church there because of controversy about his non-traditional views. The printer, Daniel Bowen, seems only to have been active for a couple years. He apprenticed with John Carter in Rhode Island but there are only 3 books with his imprint currently available (1787 and 1788). In 1785 there are a few titles with the imprint of Meigs, Bowen and Dana. (Could it be same Dana who wrote the sermon?) The inscription on the front is to Andrew Eliot, owner of a dry-good store in New Haven. Please email with questions or to request photos. Signed by Author(s).…

No Binding. Condition: Very Good. No covers. 38 page sermon. Remains of leather on the spine, as if removed from a larger book. Pages clean and corners square. No marks, stains or tears, with little or no foxing. Margins are cut close, especially on the sides. It never affects the text, but it does affect the inscription on the top of the half title/cover. The inscription there reads, "A Eliot's from the Author. 179" (with the last number of the date cropped off. Measures 4.5 x 7.25 inches. James Dana was the pastor of the first church in New Haven, where is ministered from 1789 until 1805. Ezra Stiles was the president of Yale and a founder of Brown University. His legacy as a free-thinking Yankee is somewhat tarnished by the fact that he owned a slave evidently given to him as a gift of thanks for providing rum for a voyage to Africa (or else investing in the rum as part of a money-making effort the record is not clear). He was not yet 30 at the time. The printers, Thomas and Samuel Green, operated a press that had been in New Haven for generations. They are descended from Samuel Green who arrived in Boston in the 1630's and who was operating a press there by the 1650's. Green's son operated a press in New-Haven as early as the 1680's. Wroth, in 'The Colonial Printer' offers an anecdote that touches on both the Green press and Ezra Stiles. He writes that in 1768, a Connecticut silversmith named Abel Buell cut and cast a set of type. At that time, there was no type-foundry in the Colonies. Buell, seeking patronage of some sort, sent notice of his achievement to Ezra Stiles, then a pastor in Newport, RI. Stiles passed along the information that there was a new (first) American type-founder and in 1769 Stiles himself presented a petition to the Connecticut Assembly for aid in establishing a type-foundry. The state agreed to fund it & the first American foundry was established. "It was only in 1781 that he [Buell] applied himself to the task of supplying Thomas and Samuel Green, of New Haven, and Timothy Green, of New London, with type of his own making, which, though poor enough, was yet more readable than the worn and battered letters that the wartime American stringency had compelled most American printers to keep in their cases." (page 100). We do now know whether this sermon was printed with that Buell-cast type, but it seems entirely possible. Signed by the prominent New Haven pastor. The recipient, A[ndrew] Eliot, owned a dry-goods store in New Haven. Signed by Author(s).…