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

Single sheet, folded. 4pp. 12.5" x 8".
An exceptionally early New Zealand missionary letter from 1825 sent by William White from Marsden's Vale following the destruction of the mission at Whangaroa Harbour by local Māori. White (1794-1875) was sent with Samuel Leigh in 1823 to establish the first Wesleyan Mission in New Zealand at Kaeo in an attempt to convert the Māori. Leigh left almost immediately and White was left in charge, and the situation quickly deteriorated following the sacking of the ships Boyd and Mercury.
As transcribed below, the letter details White's taking refuge at Marsden's Vale with the Anglican Church Missionary Society. Around this time, while scouting for a new station, White became the first European to make an expedition into the Waikato region. He left for England shortly thereafter and the Whangaroa Mission was abandoned. When he returned new station was established in 1827 at Mangungu, Hokianga, under the protection of Patuone and Nene.
Marsden's Vale Bay of IslandsNew… Read More

Single issue of The Indian Helper, the paper printed by the students at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School as part of the vocational training program. Single sheet, folded, on fragile wood-pulp paper. 10.75" x 7.5".
This particular issue contains the class photograph on inside verso, with identifying names and tribal affiliations. Contents also includes the program for commencement exercises.

Two autograph inscriptions by Ojibwe leaders Peter Jones and John Sunday on excised album pages, with accompanying lithograph portrait mounted to facing page. 10" x 8", with minor soiling and some chipping to edges.
John Sunday (c. 1795-1875), also known as Shahwundais or Shawundais, was a Mississauga Ojibwe chief and a Methodist minister. He was ordained in 1836 and became a missionary among the Indians of central Canada. He traveled to England in 1837, when this autograph would have been obtained. He was received by Queen Victoria as a chief of his people in order to petition for the land title of his group First Nations people.
Dated March 28th, 1837, in Manchester, England, the album page offered here contains a bilingual inscription of John 13:34 in English and Ojibwe. Facing Sunday's inscription is a lithographed portrait of him tipped onto the facing page, engraved by James Thomson from a portrait by William Gush, where he is depicted wearing a medal presented by Queen Victoria.
Peter Jones… Read More

Autograph & commonplace album, with dozens of inscriptions by missionaries, 1882-1908, including Rev. Joseph Jackson Fuller of Jamaica and the CameroonsManuscript commonplace book, with dates ranging from 1882-1908. From the estate of the Larkworthy family. Numerous inscriptions, poems, and drawings, including one watercolor.
Of particular interest are the first dozen pages of the album, which contain dozens of inscriptions by missionaries, often with a biblical quote, translated into the language of the region they had served in. The highlight is an inscription by the missionary to the Cameroons, Joseph Jackson Fuller (1825-1908). Born into slavery in Spanish Town, Jamaica, he became one of the first enslaved people to be manumitted in Jamaica under the apprenticeship act. In 1843 he traveled from Jamaica to the Cameroons, where he spent most of his life before retiring to England. During the last decades of his life he became a noted speaker on missionary efforts in Africa. The inscription from… Read More

First edition. Photocopied chapbook by poet and disability activist Mark O'Brien who, after contracting polio as a child, spent the rest of his life (with brief exceptions) in an iron lung. His life was the subject of two movies, the Academy Award winning documentary Breathing Lessons: The Life and Work of Mark O'Brien and the comedy-drama The Sessions.

Full year, complete with 4 issues of the Chinese Supplement. Sixteen issues, unbound, with separate 4 page cover page and index. First edition. Some splitting to center folds, chipping to edges and corners of cover page and index, as well as to first and last issues in series. After a few brief articles relating to Chinese immigration to Hawaii, in 1882 The Friend published a 4 part supplement, 32 pages in all, relating to China and Chinese life in Hawaii, offering one of the earliest printed treatments of the Chinese in Hawaii, and the earliest (by some decades) of any length on the topic. These 4 issues provide a sympathetic treatment of Chinese immigrants, and include work with Chinese Christians such Samuel Aheong and Sit Moon (a friend of Sun Yat-sen, who was in Hawaii at the time). The longest narrative is "Tours Among the Chinese", written by Frank Damon, as he was accompanied by Ho Ah Pui through the settlements of Chinese immigrants on different islands. A significant and scarce milestone in… Read More

First edition, a modified, London-published of The Visions of Hung-Siu-Tshuen, and Origin of the Kwang-Si Insurrection which had been published in Hong Kong in 1854. Chipping with some loss of cloth to ends of spine. Bumping and softening to corners. Bookplate removed from front pastedown. Occasional soiling to page faces, else reasonably fresh and sturdy internally. Now in custom morocco leather slipcase.
The most important contemporary work on Hong Xiuquan (洪秀全) and the Taiping Rebellion, the book is a translation of Hong Rengan's narrative (洪仁玕, referred to in the book as Hung-Jin) and covers the first years of the rebellion and his early life and work alongside Hong Xiuquan.

Two fairytale storybooks bound together in gilt stamped cloth. 32pp.+32pp. Containing color plates with tissue guards for both stories, stated as being printed in oil colors for Brown, Loomis & Co. Illustrations by William H. Thwaites, with engravings accomplished by Nathaniel Orr. Inscription on front pastedown. No other markings. A well-loved book, externally rubbed and worn, with occasional light soiling to page faces. Color plates and pages are clean and fresh. Both of these story books are scarce, and this bookseller can find no record of other copies that were bound together.

A letterpress Christian prayer in Māori, "A Prayer for those Seeking Baptism". Single sheet, reverse blank. 6.8" x 4.25". Printed by William Colenso at Hawke's Bay Mission Press.
Sharp copy, with slightly uneven edges. Williams 164; Bagnall 1323; Books in Maori, 331

First edition. Publisher's gilt stamped green cloth. Photograph frontis of Mary Emma Cabaniss. Clean, bright, unmarked copy with light external wear.
The Nineteenth Street Baptist Church is one of the oldest African American churches in Washington, D.C. The Helping Hand Club was established in 1907 with Mary Cabaniss as its first president.

Cabinet card of Frank Bennett Fiske's iconic 'Indian Wranglers' photograph, showing two young American Indian men in full cowboy regalia, including buffalo-hide chaps.
From P. Zutterling studio, Cincinnati, with Commercial Art Co. of Cincinnati stamped to reverse with pen notations above.
I have found no documentation as to when Fiske originally took the image, though rough estimates seem to place it between 1905-1910. This is a period silver print cabinet card reproduction from the original negative, sold to popular audiences throughout the country. Again, undated, but would estimate that it was produced between 1910-1920.
Image 5.7" x 3.85" mounted to 6.5" x 4.15" heavy cardboard stock card with scalloped edges. Modest handling wear along edges of image and to cardstock, visible in images.

First edition. Wraps. Stamp of Dr. F. M. Dimas-Aruti to first blank, and stamp of Vuelo Panamericano de Buena Voluntad to title page. Pages uncut, internally clean and fresh. Externally covers worn particularly along edges and at spine. In Spanish.
The first and most famous novel by the future President of the Dominican Republic, written shortly before Bosch was forced into exile by Rafael Trujillo.

Handwritten letter written by architect Peter Nicholson (1765-1844) to Thomas Webster, July 9, 1800, offering to take Webster on as a partner. Single sheet, folded, two pages of text and address panel with reverse blank. Edges moderately soiled.
Nicholson was one the premier British architects of his time and is known for his work in the development of the skew arch. He was also a prolific writer of technical books related to architecture, engineering, and mathematics.

First edition. Publisher's gilt-stamped boards. A highly unusual book, published by a Swedish-American servant and reviewed upon publication by H. L. Mencken, there are no records of any copies of this held institutionally or in commerce.
The text appears to largely be a dialogue between Svea (presumably a stand-in for the author) and her diary, and is largely concerned with issues related to reform movements of the era, particularly the rights of women.
Emily Svenson was a pen name for Amelia Swanson; all that I have been able to gather about the author is that she died in an insane asylum.

Wraps, staple-bound. First authorized translation of the preamble of and Royal Decree of November 25th, 1897, published in the Official Gazette of Madrid. Mild external wear. Foxing to cover. Curling to top right corner. Slight chipping to edges of wraps. Silverfishing to bottom right corner of last few pages.

Fundraising concert brochure and program pair for St. Luke's Episcopal Church, the first African American Episcopal church in Washington, D.C, for November 5th, 1885.
The star of this concert was Madame Selika (Marie Selika Williams, c. 1849-1937), the first African American to perform at the White House, performing with accompaniment, as well as with the Selika Quartette.The program also lists multiple performances by her husband, Sampson Williams, known as Signor Velosko, the Hawaiian Tenor, as well as a performance and piano accompaniment by Blanche Washington, who is listed in Majors' Noted Negro Women: Their Triumphs and Activities. Other performers include Mamie Nichols, Josie Stewart Ball, Henry Jaeger, William T. Benjamin, and Mary P. Evans.
The concert is listed as managed by Daniel Alexander Payne Murray, noted historian, and directed by Christian Abraham Fleetwood, Union officer and recipient of the Medal of the Honor. Both were significant figures in the African American community of… Read More

Photograph postcard of Mifflin Wistar Gibbs, signed and inscribed by Gibbs on his 90th birthday to John Wesley Cromwell. 5.5" x 3.25". Little Rock, Arkansas. April 17, 1912.
Mifflin Wistar Gibbs was an African American publisher, lawyer, judge, banker and diplomat. After moving to California during the gold rush and publishing Alta California, billed as the "state's only African-American newspaper," and the Mirror of the Times, Gibbs emigrated to British Columbia along with 600-800 other African-Americans in protest of the discriminatory laws of California. While in British Columbia he served as a city council member and as a delegate to the Yale Convention. He then returned to the United States, settling in Arkansas where he became the first African-American judge elected in the United States. He later became president of the National Convention of Colored Men at Nashville, Tennessee, served as a delegate to several Republican national conventions, and served as American consul to Madagascar,… Read More

Volume VI, Part 1. Single issue. First edition. Original wraps. Complete with all maps and charts bound in at rear. Pages partially uncut. Cover and spine rubbed and moderately soiled, though still very well preserved for wraps from the period.
Contains Robert Fitzroy's preliminary account of the voyage of the Beagle, describing Charles Darwin as "a zealous volunteer... He will make known the results of his five years' voluntary seclusion and disinterested exertions in the cause of science." Encompassing pages 311-343, as communicated by John Barrow.
Also includes John Helder Wedge's "On the Country Around Port Philip, South Australia" and Thomas Mitchell's "Latest Accounts from Australia".

Publisher's pink printed wraps. 62pp. + 2pp ads at rear. No author. Unrecorded, with no records of any copies of this held institutionally or in commerce. The only hints regarding the publication are an advertisement at the front for F. Wesel Mfg. Co., at 11 Spruce Street in New York City (Wesel's company moved to 11 Spruce Street in 1885), and the advertisement at the back for the Mergenthaler Linotype Machine, which was initially released in 1886. The author's name being listed as 'A Keeley Graduate' is likely a satirical reference to Keeley Institute and its treatment of alcoholics.
The text is a series of short vignettes related to snakes, told in a mildly humorous and vernacular tall-tale manner.