The Wide, Wide World.

New York: George P. Putnam,, 1851. Only "surpassed by Uncle Tom's Cabin in sales and popularity" First edition of Susan Bogert Warner's first novel, written under the pseudonym of Elizabeth Wetherell, in bright condition. Warner (1819-1885) began writing The Wide, Wide World in 1848. It was to become one of the most popular American novels of its time, however initially had difficulty finding a publisher. "Even when George P. Putnam accepted the novel for publication in 1850 (largely because his mother was enthusiastic about the manuscript), he initially printed only 750 copies; two years later, the novel was reprinted for the fourteenth time, and for decades to come, only Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin surpassed Warner's first novel in sales and popularity" (ANB). Henry James wrote admiringly of the work in the Nation in 1860, praising Warner's realistic depiction of rural life. This copy is in the third state listed in BAL, without the printer's imprint on the copyright page, and the final signature of vol. II being [15]^4; the order of priority given as "probable". Blanck notes in his juvenilia bibliography Peter Parley to Penrod that, as in the present copy, "in first printed copies the folio at p. 157, vol. I, and the folio at p. 34, vol. II, are misplaced and appear at the inner portion of the page rather than at the fore-edge" (Blanck, p. 4). 2 vols, octavo. Original green morocco-grain cloth, titles and decorative motifs to spine in bronze, covers stamped in blind within double-rule frames, yellow coated endpapers (BAL binding b, no priority). Spines gently cocked and a little sunned, faint spotting to joints, touch of wear to tips, occasional foxing; a very good copy indeed. BAL 21253; Jacob Blanck, Peter Parley to Penrod: a bibliographical description of the best-loved American juvenile books, 1938.