ILLUSTRATIONS OF LONGFELLOW'S COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. PHOTOGRAPHED FROM THE ORIGINAL DRAWINGS BY BRADY.

N Y, N Y: Rudd & Carleton. Very Good with no dust jacket. 1859. First Edition. Hardcover. Oblong 4to 11" - 13; (BRADY, MATHEW). EHNINGER, JOHN W. Illustrations of Longfellow's Courtship of Miles Standish. Photographed from the Original Drawings by Brady. First Edition with these illustrations. Original blood-red tooled morocco with gilt lettering at upper cover, a. E. G. , text with eight mounted albumen prints of drawings by Ehninger, all approximately 5 1/4 X 7 1/2" on rectos of plain sheets. Binding strong, darkened at spine and edges with old wear recently treated, text strong with hinges repaired, light marginal dampstain to all leaves but contents clean of foxing, prints in nice condition with good tones; with contemporary engraved bookplate at front pastedown of Erastus Corning (1794-1872) , founder of the New York Central Railroad . Van Haaften 33. A volume frequently overlooked in the history of the photographically illustrated book. This was the first American use of original photographs of illustrations for a literary work. Heretofore, only through various mechanical printing processes could an artist's illustrations be reproduced faithfully, primarily etchings and lithographs, with almost all original illustrations on paper copied by others onto plates for engravings. Unpaginated aprox 40 leaves. Photographic reproductions of paintings had been included in a number of books, but photographs of drawings specific to a particular literary work had not been previously attempted; the hope was a level of reproduction never before achieved. The process was expensive (engravings were far cheaper than hand-mounting photographic prints) , the public yawned, and the concept became an idea before its time, to be resuscitated several decades later when the technique of photoengraving was perfected, enabling publishers to put photographic reproductions of drawings directly onto printing plates. A. E. G. .