"Casey at the bat" by Thayer, Ernest Lawrence, 1863-1940 - 1893

First available edition, previously unknown, of "the best baseball poem that was ever written" (Spink); preceded mostly by newspaper printings 1888 etc, all unobtainable. This version comprises eight stanzas; it's set in Boston not Mudville, and it omits the author's name (as usual before 1901). All nineteenth-century printings of "Casey at the bat" are very rare. -- In 8s (168 x 111 mm, 6-5/8 x 4-3/8 inches): 162 leaves paginated [i]-[vi], [5]-316 [317-318 blank], collated complete. Publisher's green cloth blocked in gilt, patterned endpapers, 1 + 1 flyleaves, top-edges gilt. OCLC 37000315 (NYPL only). Unknown to Gardner The annotated Casey at the bat (1984). Provenance: Anabel Bowman (Illinois) 1894, signature.