CAPE COD. Thoreau, Henry D.:

First edition, BAL's binding A. One of 2000 copies printed. Thoreau visited Cape Cod four times between 1849 and 1857 and later delivered a series of lectures based on those visits. Edited by his sister Sophia and his friend, the Transcendentalist poet, Ellery Channing (who accompanied Thoreau on his first trip to Cape Cod in 1849), the lectures were published posthumously as Cape Cod in 1865. "Wishing to get a better view than I had yet had of the ocean but of which a man who lives a few miles inland may never see any trace I made a visit to Cape Cod in October, 1849," writes Thoreau in the book's opening lines, noting that while he has "been accustomed to make excursions to the ponds within ten miles of Concord.latterly I have extended my excursions to the sea-shore." The "sea-shore," concludes Thoreau later in the book, "is a sort of neutral ground, a most advantageous point from which to contemplate this world." This copy bears the ink ownership signature and date ("April 1865") of Clarence Cook (1828-1900), author and art critic. The book was published in late March. At the time, Cook was contributing a series of articles about American art to the New York Tribune. The ink inscription of "William R. Williams," dated 1869, on the title page, together with another ink inscription signed, "W.R.W.," on the verso of the preliminary blank, details the book's acquisition by its next owner. These inscriptions are likely those of the Baptist minister William R. Williams (1804-1885), pastor of the Amity Street Baptist Church in New York City. Williams was a noted book collector whose library was sold by Bangs in two parts in 1896, and while the present title did not appear in that sale, two other titles by Thoreau did: Excursions (1863) and Letters to Various Persons (1865). There are careful pencil annotations three places in the text, and some ink marginal highlights in the terminal catalogue next to Mayne Reid's titles. BAL 20115. BORST A5.1.a. Blue BD cloth, stamped in blind, spine stamped in gilt. A couple of small nicks at toe of spine, ink ownership signature and date on free endsheet, and inscription on verso of preliminary blank (but see below). A few ink checks in the terminal catalogue. A very good or better copy.