Printed and Manuscript Americana

New York: M. B. Brady, F. d'Avignon, C. Edwards Lester, 1850. Folio. With a letterpress presentation leaf, inscribed by C. Edwards Lester to Martin F. Tupper; letterpress title-page; letterpress index; and letterpress Salutation leaf. Illustrated with 12 lithographic portrait plates on india paper, by F. d'Avignon (11 after daguerreotypes by Brady, and one after a painting by S. Gambardella); each mounted as issued and with accompanying biographical text; five with publisher's blind stamp in lower margin. Publisher's red cloth-covered boards, decorated in blind and in gilt, rebacked with tips renewed in red morocco, staining and rubbing to boards; all edges gilt; scattered spotting and soiling to plates, generally along margins; toning and spotting to text leaves; scattered wear along sheet edges.

A very early work by Mathew Brady, the most famous American photographer of the 19th-century. Featuring 12 lithographic plates of eminent ante-bellum Americans, including General Zachary Taylor, 12th President of the United States; John C. Calhoun; Daniel Webster; Silas Wright; Henry Clay; John Charles Fremont; John James Audubon; William Hickling Prescott; General Winfield Scott; Millard Fillmore, 13th President; William Ellery Channing; and Lewis Cass.

A joint publishing venture between the journalist and author Charles Edwards Lester, who wrote the biographical sketches, the lithographer Francis d'Avignon, and Brady. The "book was issued by d'Avignon's press. It received fine notices from the Herald and other New York newspapers. Brady had paid d'Avignon a hundred dollars apiece for each of the lithograph stones and Brady soon recognized the book as a critical success but a financial failure." (Horan).

The work had its roots in 1845 when "Brady, the commercial photographer, became Brady the historian...It was in this year that Brady began work on the tremendous project of preserving for posterity the pictures of all distinguished Americans, which he planned to publish in a massive volume with the title of The Gallery of Illustrious Americans. The year 1850 was a milestone in Brady's life; his dream of having his Gallery published became a reality." (Horan). Comprised of twelve portraits, all but one from Brady's daguerreotypes, it was intended as a celebration of the United States during the first half of the nineteenth century through the "noble deeds" of its most famous citizens.

A handsome copy, without the usual heavy foxing.