Frost Robert Preface (6 results)

Hardcover. Condition: Good. 8vo, hardcover, no dj. Exterior lightly soiled, moderate foxing to endpapers & very occasional within, browning to 2 pgs. from paper once laid in; otherwise good condition, contents unmarked, binding tight. 174 pp.

Hardcover. Condition: Used-Good/NO DUSTJACKET. Not Illustrated (illustrator). London, UK: Jonathan Cape, Ltd. Used-Good/NO DUSTJACKET. 1924. . Hardcover. Sm 4to., 367 pp., Book is bumped and worn at the edges, previous owner's stamp is on the inside bottom of the rear end paper. .

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. No Jacket. Edward Sanborn (illustrator). 1st Edition. 174pp + xx. Green paper covered boards with slight fading to lower edge. Wheaten linen cloth covered spine with black lettering on paper title plate at top of spine. White embossed lettering on face. B/w frontis. No inscriptions. Clean and tightly bound. 41 contributors. B/w frontis + five other illustrations. Tiny closed 10mm tear to lower page edge (xiv). Now protected in clear acetate wrappers.

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. First edition. Woodcut illustrations by Edward Sanborn. Spine toned with light toning at board edges, very good. Contributions by: Anthony Wrynn, Hazel B. Poole, Madeline Reeder, Pedro Salinas, Jeannette Martin, Donald Davidson, Mary Elizabeth Burtis, and more. Signed by contributor Anthony Wrynn on front fly.

Hardcover. Condition: Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. First Thus. Size: 8vo 7 3/4 - 9 3/4". xiv + 367pp. Hinges cracking. Endpapers browned, text block clean. Dust Jacket marked and chipped. Edges browned. Covers slightly marked. Corners slightly bumped. Quantity Available: 1. Shipped Weight: 1-2 kilos. Category: Law & Criminal Studies; United States; 18th & 19th century; Biography & Autobiography. Pictures of this item not already displayed here available upon request. Inventory No: 52876. This book is extra heavy, and may involve extra shipping charges to some countries.

Hardcover. This is a jacketed first printing of the 1924 edition, inscribed by iconic American poet Robert Frost, who contributed a preface to the edition - his first prose contribution to a book. In black ink on the title page recto Frost crossed out his printed name and wrote directly below in two lines: "Robert Frost | Amherst 1925". Condition is good plus in a very good minus dust jacket. The publisher's quarter cloth binding over textured brown paper-covered boards is sound and clean though with a slight forward lean, some dulling of the spine gilt, and wear to extremities. The contents are age-toned, but show no spotting or soiling. The textured brown front endpapers show the only previous ownership marks a contemporary inked name and date of "12/24" on the upper front pastedown, and a large spot of apparent erasure and abrasion, including a small hole, on the upper half of the front free endpaper recto. The tan dust jacket is substantially complete and unfaded, though with mild overall soiling, and minor loss to the spine ends and flap fold corners, to a maximum depth of .75 inches at the spine head and one inch at the upper rear flap fold. The original "$4.00" price remains intact at the center spine. The dust jacket is protected beneath a clear, removable, archival cover.Of this man who defies easy encapsulation and invites hyperbolic comparison, the dust jacket blurb declares: "The son of a New Hampshire clergyman, Stephen Burroughs, counterfeiter, jail-bird and philosopher was one of the most attractive rogues that ever lived. Nothing Casanova or The Count of Monte Cristo surpasses his exploits in breaking jail; nothing in Cellini equals his effrontery. His Memoirs provide unrivalled entertainment and a vivid picture of some strange aspects of early American Life.""Rogue, impostor, and author" Stephen Burroughs (1765?-1840) gained fame in the early days of the American republic, resonating perhaps because he "came to symbolize the challenges to authority unleashed during the revolutionary generation." His fame owed perhaps to four main factors: the extent and prolonged duration of his crimes and improprieties; the eventual adhesive quality of notoriety, which led even more outrages to be ascribed to him than he actually perpetrated; the fact that he ended his days at both a respectable profession and respectable age; and, last but not least, the fact that he wrote about it all rather engagingly. The first volume of The Memoirs of Stephen Burroughs was published in 1798 and "went through multiple editions in the early 1800s, keeping Burroughs "a household name until the mid-nineteenth century". Like his fellow New Englander Robert Frost, Burroughs enrolled in Dartmouth, failed to fit, and left swiftly. He also dabbled in teaching, to which he returned, respectably and in earnest, later in life. However, Burroughs also diddled students, passed himself off as a physician and a preacher, counterfeited, entered, escaped, and reentered prison, engaged in specious land speculation, and generally warred with authority of all kinds with impenitent abandon.In his delightfully cheeky and subversively substantive Preface, Frost wrote in 1924 from Shaftsbury Vermont: "Let me tell the reader where he must put this book if he will please me and why there. On the same shelf with Benjamin Franklin and Jonathan Edwards (grandfather of Aaron Burr). Franklin will be a reminder of what we have been as a young nation in some respects, Edwards in others. Burroughs comes in reassuringly when there is question of our not unprincipled wickedness, whether we have had enough of it for saltsophisticated wickedness, the kind that knows its grounds and can twinkle, could we be expected to have produced so fine a flower in a pioneer state? The answer is that we had it and had it early in Stephen Burroughs"References: Crane D2; ANB.