The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth

New York and Auburn: Miller, Orton & Mulligan, 1856. First Edition. Hardcover. Near fine. 236 pp, in original brown cloth with embossed floral decoration. Corners lighly bumped and rubbed, else fine. Contemporary private library label/bookplate of Samuel E. Howe on front pastedown; inscribed on the front free endpaper by Howe to his friend Charles P. Frissell, Esq.; and signed by Frissell in Burlington, VT, on the rear pastedown. Both men appear to have been in the fire insurance business in New England. Kaser (The Washington, D.C. of Fiction, #2): "Set in the 1850s, this satire is presented mostly in epistolary form, through letters written by Solomon Smooth....An advocate of the most inclusive republicanism, Smooth's letters to Uncle Sam describe the specific corruption of the Pierce administration and of Washington political life and society. The work includes descriptions of the National Hotel, African Amerians, Irishmen, office seekers, and legislators representing various states....The work helps the reader understand Washington social life before the power of the federal government was strengthened by the Civil War.