Beschreibung:

AUTHORS CLUB. A collection of 105 autograph manuscripts and typescripts signed, comprising all (but four, see below) of the stories, poems and essays published in the Liber Scriptorum , the first book of the Authors Club, 1893. 3 vols., folio, the leaves of each manuscript inlaid to large sheets of heavy paper stock, bound with printed titlepages and the printed table of contents in dark red crushed levant morocco, covers with large central emblem of the Authors Club, gilt-lettered "Liber Scriptorum," covers gilt, g.e., morocco-edged cases, by Stikeman, hinges slightly cracked, minor rubbing. The manuscript preface (in the hand of Rossiter Johnson, signed by Johnson, John D. Champlin and George Cary Eggleston, dated 4 September 1893), explains that: "The Author's Club...was organized in 1882 for the 'promotion of social intercourse among authors'"; membership was limited to "writers of published books...and those who have a recognized place in other kinds of distinctly literary work." The organization, "a success from the beginning, now enrolls...a large proportion of the principal literary men of the country." A temporary clubhouse was opened in 1884 on West 14th Street, New York, but in order to enable the club to purchase permanent quarters, the publication of an anthology was proposed, to which a total of 109 authors contributed essays, poems or stories. The completed book was printed by the De Vinne Press of New York in "the best typographical dress" in an edition of 250 copies, each contribution signed by its author (see lot ). A manuscript certification at the front of vol. 1 (signed by Rossiter Johnson, Champlin and Eggleston) explains that "In a few instances the manuscript is type-written. This arises from the fact that some of the contributors are accustomed to dictate, or to use the type-writer themselves. At our request, all such have written the first and last pages of their articles with a pen." MANUSCRIPT CONTENTS: Henry Abbey, Felix Adler, Henry M. Alden, O.C. Auringer, Marcus Benjamin, Poultney Bigelow, James Thompson Bixby, Alexander Black John H. Boner, Arthur Elmore Bostwick, Richard Rogers Bowker, Hjalmar Hjorth Boysen ("The King's Bastard," AMS, 9pp. ), James H. Bridge, Elbridge S. Brooks, Noah Brooks ("The Books of an Old Boy," AMS, 28pp. ), Clarence Clough Buel, Nicholas Murray Butler ("The Place of Comenius in the History of Education," AMS and TMS, 13pp. ), William Carey, Will Carleton ("The Ghost of Sable Island," AMS, 5pp. ), William Henry Carpenter, Edward Cary, Julius Chambers, John Denison Chaplin, John Vance Cheney, William Conant Church, Frank Montrose Clendenin, Titus Munson Coan, Alban Jasper Conant ("My Acquaintance With Abraham Lincoln," TMS and AMS, 37pp. ), Moncure Daniel Conway ("Our Summer Life at Wianno," AMS, 12pp. ), Theodore Low De Vinne ("Do You Know the Letters?," AMS and TMS, 12pp. ), Maurice Francis Egan, Edward Eggleston ("In Defense of the Dead," AMSs, 14pp. ), George Carp Eggleston ("The Literary Disadvantages of Living Too Late," AMS, 18pp. ), Henry R. Elliot, George H. Ellwanger, William Dudley Foulke, William Hamilton Gibson, Richard Watson Gilder ("Bards," AMS, 2pp. ), Daniel Coit Gilman, Parke Godwin ("The Germans in America," AMS, 26pp. ), Solomon Bulkley Griffin, Arthur Sherburne Hardy ("Duality," AMS, 1p. ), Henry Harland ("The King's Touch," AMS, 7pp. ), John Hay ("Euthanasia," AMS, 1p. ), William T. Henderson Ripley Hitchcock, Bronson Howard ("History in a Play," AMS, 36pp. ), William D. Howells, ("Judgment Day," AMS, 1p. ), Laurence Hutton, Rossiter Johnson ("Relief for Literature," AMS, 16pp. ), Charles de Kay, William L. Keese, James B. Kenyon, David Bennett King, Leonard Kip, Joseph Kirkland ("Jean Baptiste Pointe de Saible: The Haytian Negro Who Was the First 'White Man' to Settle in Chicago," AMS, 22pp. ), Thomas W. Knox, Henry E. Krehbiel ("The Tannhäuser Myth," AMS, 39pp. ), George Parsons Lathrop ("Elsewhere," AMS, 25pp. ), Walter Learned, Percival Low