ESSAYS: Second Series

1844. Boston: James Munroe and Company, 1844. 2 pp undated ads. Original dark brown blind-stamped vertically-ribbed cloth.

First Edition, first state, first binding -- of Emerson's "2d Series" of ESSAYS, which like his 1841 first series, was underwritten by himself. This "Second Series" of nine more essays was published by Munroe, in two printings dated 1844 which have 23 minor textual differences enumerated by Myerson. (Since Myerson notes that "nearly every copy examined" is a combination of sheets from both printings, and that "copies composed exclusively of first or second printing sheets are scarce," he treats the two ("a-b") as the first state of this book.) Myerson also notes that there are four binding states, each of which consists of several different colors or grains of cloth; in listing them as "A" through "D", he notes that "A" copies have the most first-printing points, while "D" copies have the fewest first-printing points. This copy is in binding "A" -- specifically, dark brown vertically-ribbed cloth with "2D. SERIES" on the spine (the other three binding states all read "SECOND SERIES"). Of the 23 printing points, this copy has the first twenty from the first printing, and only the final three (on pages 200, 309 and 313) from the second printing. Condition is bright and near-fine (minor wear at the spine ends, light foxing as usual with this paper from the 1840s). Myerson notes that copies were bound with flyleaves (some of which were pasted down, under the endpapers); in this copy, as in a few others we have seen, the yellow-coated endpapers are trimmed a little short, allowing the pasted-down flyleaves to be more visible than usual. Myerson A16.1.a-b; Blanck 5198; Grolier One Hundred Influential American Books Published Before 1900, #47 ("... These essays are as readable, and to a considerable extent as much read, today as a hundred years ago ... their individualistic idealism, which stirred renascent Yankee New England to its depths, speaks with the same simple power and force in the midst of modern complexities"). Housed in a cloth slipcase with inner chemise.