A week on the Concord and Merrimac rivers de THOREAU, HENRY DAVID - 1862

Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1862. "First edition, second issue, 8vo, pp. 413, [3]; spine a bit faded and gilt lettering slightly dull, spine ends rubbed and with minor cracks (no loss) else a very good, sound copy in original brown cloth, with no cracking of the joints. Thoreau's first book, comprising sheets from the 1849 printing with a new title page (there were about 450 copies of this second issue). One thousand copies of the first edition of 1849 were printed. Only 294 were sold in four years. The balance were packed up by the publisher, James Munroe, and shipped back to Thoreau at Concord, which lead to Thoreau's famous remark: ""I have now a library of nearly nine hundred volumes, over seven hundred of which I wrote myself."" A month before Thoreau's death, Ticknor bought 145 bound copies and 450 unbound copies from Thoreau himself (the other 100 or so Thoreau had either sold or given away). The remaining unbound copies were bound up with a new title-page bearing Ticknor's imprint and the date 1862.BAL 20104; Borst A1.1.a2. "