HANS BREITMANN'S PARTY. WITH OTHER BALLADS

1868. [LELAND, Charles Godfrey]. HANS BREITMANN'S PARTY. WITH OTHER BALLADS. Philadelphia: T. B. Peterson & Brothers, [1868]. First edition of the first collection of Leland's very popular, humorous, Hans Breitmann ballads. 32 pp. Octavo, 8.5 by 5.75 in., paper wrappers (BAL 11554) - only this copy lacks the upper wrapper. Ex library, with two small stamps on verso of the title-page and no other marks. Title-page and lower wrapper are dust soiled; otherwise it is clean within. A fragile format in very good condition overall, but it is offered as is due to the missing wrapper. Leland's comic creation, Hans Breitmann, is "a robust, beer-guzzling, giant of a man" who speaks heavily German-accented English, whose life is full of adventure and is one big "barty" (that is, party). From his initial appearance in Graham's Magazine in May 1857, appreciation and demand for Hans Breitmann poems and stories grew until they were collected in pamphlets - of which this is the first - and carried forward in a series of books that enjoyed enormous popular and critical success throughout the last half of the nineteenth century in the United State and England, and even Germany. Admirers included James Russell Lowell, William Dean Howell, and Leslie Stephens. (ANB Online).