The Harvard Book: A Series of Historical, Biographical, and Descriptive Sketches (Two Volumes)

Complete in two volumes. Hardcover in original pebbled cloth over boards. University emblem is gilt stamped on top covers. [Folio or approx. 12 x 19 inches], Vol 1 346pp., Illus., 33 heliotypes, 57 illustrations, 24 wood engravings, 3 lithographs. Vol 2 447pp., illus., 26 heliotype views, 24 wood engravings. Frederick O. Vaille and Henry Alden Clark first compiled The Harvard Book in 1875 as a souvenir for fellow members of the Harvard College classes of 1874 and 1875. A comprehensive history of campus life to 1875, the book describes Harvard's academic mission customs, building, organizations, and prominent faculty and alumni. 30 fine full page heliotypes, two lithographs and a copper engraving by Paul Revere, struck from the original plate. "The Harvard Book" stands pre-eminently apart from the other histories of the University. It comprises two large quarto volumes, making upwards of eight hundred pages, printed on fine paper, with press-work as good as the University Press of Cambridge could do. The type used was new, and every line shows the handiwork of a competent and careful pressman. In many respects the illustrations make it the best-illustrated book published in this country prior to 1875. The views of the then-existing buildings and the portraits are heliotype photographs, giving certainly the most accurate pictures possible; and the prints, it is said, will permanently retain their original appearance. The subjects of the illustrations include almost every thing to be looked for in any illustrated book on Harvard University. In one particular, this history meets a want not supplied by the others. It gives historical and descriptive sketches, illustrated with views, of all the societies; and biographies, illustrated with portraits, of the chief officers of all departments. The whole work elicited so much admiration elsewhere, that a similar undertaking, "The Yale Book," has since been carried out at Yale College. Of "The Harvard Book" there were about five hundred copies of the first edition printed and perhaps one hundred copies of the second edition. These six hundred copies will enhance in value as time rolls on; for there will probably never be printed another edition, as the illustrations and negatives were wholly consumed by the fire in December last, which destroyed the office and warehouse of the present proprietors and publishers, Houghton Mifflin, & Co., of Boston" The Harvard Register. Moses King, 1880.…