Sold For $405
*Includes Buyers Premium
Signed book: Poems of Oliver Wendell Holmes. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1882. Hardcover, 5.5 x 8.25, 324 pages. The first free end page features a six-line AQS from Holmes' poem 'The Last Leaf,' which Holmes has signed after the conclusion, adding "Boston, December 9, 1885." The stanza, in full: "And if I should live to be / The last leaf upon the tree / In the spring, / Let them smile, as I do now, / At the old forsaken bough / Where I cling."
Autographic condition: fine. Book condition: spine missing with front and rear marbled boards detached, remnants of old repairs with tape; a couple of interior pages are tanned where newspaper clippings (included) regarding Holmes were kept; bookplate of Edward Royall Tyler affixed inside front board; the printed text of 'The Last Leaf' has been marked in pencil. The missing spine would be simple to repair, or the AQS could be removed from the book and framed together with the engraved portrait of Holmes and an engraved illustration representing Melvill that also appear in the book.
Written in 1830, 'The Last Leaf' was inspired by Thomas Melvill[e] (1751-1832). Melvill—the grandfather of 'Moby Dick' author Herman Melville—was a prominent Boston citizen and friend of John Adams who participated in the Boston Tea Party in 1773. Holmes would later write that Melvill had reminded him of 'a withered leaf which has held to its stem through the storms of autumn and winter, and finds itself still clinging to its bough while the new growths of spring are bursting their buds and spreading their foliage all around it.'
Edgar Allan Poe described 'The Last Leaf' as one of the finest works in the English language and, years later, the poem also became a favorite of Abraham Lincoln. William Herndon, Lincoln's law partner and biographer, wrote in 1867: 'I have heard Lincoln recite it, praise it, laud it, and swear by it.'
This item is Pre-Certified by PSA/DNA
Buy a third-party letter of authenticity for
$50.00
*This item has been pre-certified by a trusted third-party authentication service, and by placing a bid on this item, you agree to accept the opinion of this authentication service. If you wish to have an opinion rendered by a different authenticator of your choosing, you must do so prior to your placing of any bid. RR Auction is not responsible for differing opinions submitted 30 days after the date of the sale.
