The Annotated Uncle Tom's Cabin

New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2007. Hardcover. Small 4to. Imitation vellum with metallic blue lettering, rules and decoration, pictorial dust jacket. xlvii, 480pp. Frontispiece, numerous illustrations (some color). Fine/fine. Spectacularly tight and bright first edition of this volume in Norton's delightful "Annotated" series that features exhaustive explanatory side notes for every page and illustrations of relevant images -- and this unique copy has tipped in before the half-title page an original, superb, heavy stock steel-engraved three-quarter portrait of Stowe seated with hands resting on a book in her lap; it features vintage, delicate hand coloring -- rosy cheeks, red lips, curly locks pale blond and flowing dress pale green. Very good. Mildly age toned. Small printed text beneath notes "From the original painting by Chappel in the possession of the publishers" and miniscule copyright data notes publisher as Johnson, Fry & Co. and the year 1872. This portrait first appeared in volume two of Evert Duyckinck's "Portrait Gallery of Eminent Men and Women in Europe and America" (New York: Johnson, Wilson, & Co, 1872-74). An all-around outstandingly fresh copy with a choice 19th century addition.