April 2025 Auction Ends Thursday, April 24th, 5pm Pacific
Exquisite 10 volume collection of ''The Writings of Henry David Thoreau'' limited ''manuscript'' edition, containing a handwritten and hand-edited draft by Thoreau from ''Cape Cod''. Boston: Houghton Mifflin and Company, 1906, number 326 in the limited edition of 600.
In each of the manuscript limited editions published by Houghton Mifflin, a two-page leaf, handwritten by Thoreau is found, selected from one of his works. The example here, with Thoreau's numerous hand-edited corrections and additions in pencil, is based upon his travels to Cape Cod in the early 1850s, edited and published posthumously in 1865. In this manuscript, Thoreau writes of the beaches, crops and history of the town of Eastham, with beautiful and detailed observations that straddle both realism and transcendalism in style. The corresponding passage in the book follows, which differs slightly from Thoreau's draft found within.
'''There is a doubtful appearance of a soil beginning to be formed. It is styled doubtful, because it would not be observed by every eye, and perhaps not acknowledged by many.' We thought that this would not be a bad description of the greater part of the Cape. There is a 'beach' on the west side of Eastham, which we crossed the next summer, half a mile wide, and stretching across the township, containing seventeen hundred acres, on which there is not now a particle of vegetable mould, though it formerly produced wheat. All sands are here called 'beaches,' whether they are waves of water or of air, that dash against them, since they commonly have their origin on the shore.
'The sand in some places,' says the historian of Eastham, 'lodging against the beach-grass, has been raised into hills fifty feet high, where twenty-five years ago no hills existed. In others it has filled up small valleys, and swamps. Where a strong rooted bush stood, the appearance is singular: a mass of earth and sand adheres to it, resembling a small tower. In several places, rocks, which were formerly covered with soil, are disclosed, and being lashed by the sand, driven against them by the wind, look as if they were recently dug from a quarry.'
We were surprised to hear of the great crops of corn which are still raised in Eastham, notwithstanding the real and apparent barrenness. Our landlord in Orleans had told us that he raised three or four hundred bushels of corn annually, and also of the great number of pigs which he fattened. In Champlain's 'Voyages,' there is a plate representing the Indian cornfields hereabouts, with their wigwams in the midst, as they appeared in 1605, and it was here that the Pilgrims, to quote their own words, 'bought eight or ten hogsheads of corn and beans' of the Nauset Indians, in 1622, to keep them selves from starving. 'In 1667 the town of Eastham voted that every housekeeper should kill twelve''. The passage from the book continues, ''blackbirds or three crows, which did great damage to the corn; and this vote was repeated for many years.''
Manuscript leaf has been inlaid and tipped-into volume 1 by the publisher, folding out to measure 10.25'' x 8.5''. With signature by Houghton Mifflin on the limitation page. In addition to the manuscript, volumes also feature photogravure plates by Herbert W. Gleason throughout, and a color frontispiece and color carbon photograph of a flower within each volume. Bound in publisher's three-quarter levant morocco leather, with a gilt floral pattern tooled to spine. Top edge gilt, deckled fore edge. Collection includes volumes 1 and 6-13 of Thoreau's journal, as well as volume 5, ''Excursions and Poems'', lacking ten of the other volumes. Each volume measures 6.25'' x 9''. Half-inch split on fold line of manuscript. Minor shelf wear and faint sunning to spines, else near fine condition.
Henry David Thoreau Handwritten & Edited Draft from ''Cape Cod'' Within the Limited Edition of His Writings -- ''...All sands are here called 'beaches,' whether they are waves of water or of air...''
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