Vassall Morton A Novel (First Edition, First Printing, 1856) Rare Early White Mountains Fiction

Boston: Phillips, Sampson & Company, 1856 Near fine in the original brown cloth blindstamped boards, gilt titles on the spine. A true first printing dated 1856 on the title page. 414 pages with a 7 page publisher catalog in the rear. Light spine end fraying and a tad bit of corner wear, All-in-all a very well-preserved example of this early novel with connections to the White Mountains of NH. No ownership marks inside which is uncommonly clean and bright with white/creamy paper and no foxing to pages (including the often affected period yellow paper end sheets), no dog ears, tears or other markings to distract from this unusually Fine condition. Several of our hero's tales have roots deep in the White Mountains, to wit: "Morton, en route for the barbarous districts of which Vinal had expressed his disapproval, stopped by the way at a spot which, though wild enough at that time, had ceased to be a wilderness. This was the Notch of the White Mountains, perverted, since, into a resort of quasi fashion. Here, arriving late at the lonely hostelry of one Tom Crawford, he learned from that worthy person, to whom his face was well known, that other guests, from Boston, like himself, were seated at the tea table. Accordingly, descending thither, he saw four persons. The first was a quiet-looking man, with the air of a gentleman, and something in his appearance which seemed to indicate military habits and training. Morton remembered to have seen him before. At his side, and under his tutelary care, sat two personages, who, from their dimensions, must have been boys of some seven years old, but from the solemnity of their countenances, might have passed for a brace of ancient philosophers. They looked so much alike that Morton thought he saw double. Each was seated on a volume of Clark's Commentaries, to raise his chin to the needful height above the table cloth. Both were encased in tunics, strapped about them with shining morocco belts. Their small persons were terminated at one end by morocco shoes of somewhat infantile pattern, and at the other by enormous heads, with chalky complexions, pale, dilated eyes, wrinkled foreheads, and mouths pursed up with an expression of anxious care, abstruse meditation, and the most experienced wisdom." This passage of course refering to 'The Crawford House' in what is now 'Crawford Notch'. The author drew upon facts, Tom Crawford was likely running the hostelry at the time in about 1852. Vassall also went to Dartmouth College. These clear references, and several others, were somehow missed by Allen Bent in his classic bibliography of the White Mountains, (AMC 1911). NOTE: I paginated this novel and did find 1 dog-ear to the lower corner of pp 45/6, appologies.