Search Results: ABAA-HOLIDAY-2023 from Open Boat Booksellers

Short note written to Reverend George Cheever from the offices of Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly, dated October 18, 874, in (presumably) secreterial hand. Note regards receipt of payment for subscription and is signed 'Woodhull Claflin'.
6.25" x 4.35", with traces of mounting to reverse.
Woodhull & Claflin's weekly was the radical periodical founded by 1872 presidential candidate Victoria Woodhull and her sister, Tennessee Claflin, and was the first to publish The Communist Manifesto in the United States, and whose publication of the details Henry Ward Beecher's affair led to the passage of the Comstock Laws of 1873.

'An Act for the Abolition of Slavery throughout the British Colonies; for promoting the Industry of the manumitted Slaves; and for compensating the Persons hitherto entitled to the Services of such Slaves.' [913]-939. Folio, disbound. Ownership signature along top edge, with some erased mathematical figures in pencil along the bottom. First and last leaves browned heavily chipped with substantial loss to margins. Please note photos: priced to reflect condition.
A milestone in the history of abolition, the 1833 Act outlawed British trade in enslaved people. It stated that 'all such persons should be manumitted and set free.'

An apparently unrecorded broadside printed for the Saint John Temperance League of Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada. No date, circa 1850. Edges slightly rough, some bunching of paper at folds. 12.5" x 5.25". Signed in type by William Henry Hathaway (or Hatheway, 1825-1908) and Nathan Smith DeMill (1804-1864).
Nathan DeMill was a Loyalist and a prosperous merchant, shipowner, and lumberman in Saint John. He was active on the board of governors of Acadia College. He became a Baptist and a temperance advocate, earning the nickname "cold-water DeMill". His papers are held at the New Brunswick Museum and the Maritime History Archive at the Memorial University of Newfoundland.

First edition. Near fine in original yellow wraps. Clean, bright, unmarked, and sturdy, with original price stamped to front cover. No. 3 of The Flying Stag Plays for The Little Theatre. A scarce and well-preserved copy of one of the earliest publications of the Provincetown Players for the famed Playhouse.

First edition. 8pp. Two 2pp. double-sided sheets with one folded 4pp. sheet. Extremely fragile piece, on brown and heavily chipped paper, with substantial loss to margins and some splitting, partially affecting text, though with minimal loss along folds. Edges friable and still flaking in portions. Please see note these issues, visible in the high resolution photos. A significant speech given by an African American congressman during Reconstruction, this item is priced to reflect its condition.
Robert Brown Elliott a Caribbean-born African American member of the United States House of Representatives from South Carolina, serving between 1871 and 1874. Prior to his election, he formed the nation's first known African-American law firm, Whipper, Elliott, and Allen, with William Whipper and Macon B. Allen. Along with being elected for two terms in the US House, he served as South Carolina Attorney General and Speaker of the South Carolina State House. While in Congress, he was known for his powerful… Read More

First edition. Mimeographed pages, with multicolor matte covers in plastic comb binding. Signed by author Cordelia Attack Him (1939-1987), a Lakota woman from Oglala Lakota County in Porcupine, South Dakota at end of introduction. #149 of 500 copies, though with only two copies appearing in institutional collections.
A wonderfully illustrated collection of Lakota beadwork designs, interspersed with stories, anecdotes, and tribal lore, produced on Pine Ridge Reservation during the height of the American Indian Movement.

Sheet music supplement for the Chicago Sunday American, April 16, 1905, pp. 5-8. Paper toned but remarkably well preserved. 12.5" x 10.5".
Wonderfully illustrated cover designed by Henry E. Brevoort, with an image of African American singer Abbie Mitchell in the center of the front cover, with the billing 'Sung by Miss Abbie Mitchell in "The Southerners"'. The Southerners was a Broadway musical with a mixed race cast with music by Will Marion Cook. While collections of sheet music by Will Marion Cook and other African American popular composers of the era are not uncommon, it is far rarer to find one with a non-caricatured image of an African American woman included in the design.

First Saeghman edition of Sebald de Weert's voyage through the Straits of Magellan on behalf of the Dutch East India Company. Collated and complete. Bound in paper patterned boards with quarter vellum spine. Internally clean and unmarked. Woodcut vignette on title, allegorical woodcut on verso, 4 woodcut or engraved illustrations in the text. Part 8 of the first volume of Saeghman's collection Verscheyde Oost-Indische Voyagien (each volume published separately). De Weert is most famous for first charting some of the Falkland Islands, which were known as the Sebald Islands through the eighteenth century. Sabin 102500.

First edition. Original wraps. Removed from a collection of pamphlets, with stitch markings visible at margins near spine along front and rear covers. Spine perished with binding cloth to replace it. Some rubbing and area of paper loss to front cover. Internally clean and bright.
A significant document in the history of women's suffrage in the United States, this pamphlet records the protest held when it was apparent that the Edmunds-Tucker Act of 1887, aimed at restricting LDS religious practices, would also withdraw the right of suffrage for Utah women, which had been granted while still a territory in 1870. Utah women had been the first women to cast ballots in the United States after the start of the suffrage movement, the result of the work of the first wave of Mormon feminism. Flake 5533.

First edition. Frontis portrait of Pokagon, with two additional single page illustrated plates and one two-sided page photographic plate at rear. Pink publisher's notice tipped in between copyright page and dedication. Ownership information to front pastedown. Some pen underlines to text, some dog-eared pages. Binding firm. Rubbing to cloth at ends of spine.
A scarce first edition of what is often considered to be the first novel by an American Indian written on Native American life, published shortly after the death of its Potawatomi author, Simon Pokagon in 1899.
Uncommon on the market, with Christie's having sold a similar copy in 2022.

Program from the Opera Comique Theatre for Edward Compton's production of Henry James' play The American, a theatrical adaptation of his 1877 novel. Single sheet, folded, with modest wear at corners of folds. From the collection of Maurice Sendak, sold at auction in February, 2023.
His literary agent Wolcott Balestier negotiated a contract between James and Edward Compton of the Compton Comedy Company, who took the play on tour before its opening at the Opera Comique Theatre in London on September 26, 1891. It starred Elizabeth Robins and Kate Bateman, and ran for 70 performances.

Folio album, with sketches, watercolors, and photographs by Joseph Dalton Hooker, 1867-1873, with a total of 51 pieces on paper mounts, sheet size 14" x 10", including 17 captioned photographs of Morocco, taken during his 1871 visit to North Africa.
Joseph Dalton Hooker is best known for his role as the Director of Kew Gardends, and as Charles Darwin's closest friend and confidant. During his lifetime, he was a noted botanist, naturalist, and explorer, having traveled to the Antarctic with the Ross Expedition from 1839-1843, and in the Himalayas from 1847-1851. Along with these lengthier trips, he made a number of shorter excursions, with those made from 1867-1873 represented here, most notably his trip to Morocco in the company of John Ball, where they were among the first Europeans to explore the Atlas Mountains. (The Hooker family copy of this book, Journal of a Tour in Marocco and the Great Atlas, is included with the lot). The album also contains sketches from a number of other short excursions… Read More

Two signed, typewritten letters sent by Clara Barton while serving as part of the Red Cross mission accompanying United States forces during the Spanish-American War to Harriette L. Reed. 4 sheets total, two on American National Red Cross letterhead.
The first letter, dated May 13, 1898, was written by Barton while aboard the USS Texas, waiting in Key West Harbor. The letter reads in part:
'The clear, fine days are broken; we have dull skies, and no doubt but the rainy season in Cuba has set it. Most of the great ships have been draw off, no one knows where; the hospital ship "Solace" has come into the harbor, but is anchored a long way out. Rumor has it that we shall move on very soon, but no one knows where to place Admiral, nor if we move on without him. Mr. & Mrs. [George] Kennan are in Key West, coming over to us occasionally. I presume their intention is to reach Cuba when we do. If we lie here a little longer, our men will all be genuine tars. They are flying all over the harbor, meeting the… Read More