Excursions by Thoreau, Henry D - 1864 c. 1863

Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1864 c. 1863. Second Printing. Very good in the publisher's original blue-green cloth covered boards with gilt text and decorations on the spine and blind embossing on the boards and brown coated end papers. A 16mo measuring 7" by 4 1/2" with the cloth at the head of the spine rubbed and worn, the cloth at the tips of the boards are worn through and there is an abrasion to the cloth at the lower end of the spine at the joint to the front board with the signature and town of an early prior owner on the second free end page. Otherwise, a very handsome and tight copy. 319 pages of text which is headed by a 26 page "biographical sketch" by R. W. Emerson. The first edition of this title consisted of only 1,558 copies and it was the first of his books to carry an image (an engraved frontispiece) of the author. This, the second printing, does not have the frontispiece portrait of Thoreau and was limited to only 280 copies. (Borst, A3.1.b; BAL 20111)