Irving, Washington

A Humourous History of New York

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[by J. McCreery] for W. Wright London 1820 from the Beginning of the World, to the End of the DutchDynasty; Containing, among many Surprising and Curious Matters, the Unutterable Ponderings of Walter The Doubter, the Disastrous Projects of William The Testy, and the Chivalric Achievements of Peter The Headstrong; the Three Dutch Governors of New Amsterdam; Being the only Authentic History of the Times that ever hath been Published. A New Edition. By Diedrich Knickerbocker, Author of "The Sketch Book". Engraved frontispeice portrait of Knickerbocker. 8vo. [239 x 144 x 35 mm. [2]ff, xvi, 495 pp. Bound in the original blue boards, paper spine with a printed label, plain endleaves, uncut edges. (Upper joint cracked with loss of a strip of paper at the foot, corners worn). Frontispiece and title-page lightly foxed and a few spots but a good copy, uncut and in the original boards. The printed label announces an "original plate" and gives the price of 10s.6d. in boards. An early work by Washington Irving, first published in New York in two volumes in 1809. Originally intended to burlesque a pretentious disquisition on the history of the city in a guidebook by Dr. Samuel Mitchell, Irving ended up by creating a distinct literary type out of the solid Dutch burgher whose phlegm had long been an object of ridicule to the mercurial Americans. With some early manuscript notes on the front endleaf.

• GBP 200.00 > other currencies
• ordernr.: ebc2502

• bookseller: George Bayntun (GREAT BRITAIN)