THE LINCOLN MEMORIAL: ALBUM-IMMORTELLES. ORIGINAL LIFE PICTURES, WITH AUTOGRAPHS, FROM THE HANDS AND HEARTS OF EMINENT AMERICANS AND EUROPEANS, CONTEMPORARIES OF THE GREAT MARTYR TO LIBERTY, ABRAHAM LINCOLN. TOGETHER WITH EXTRACTS FROM HIS SPEECHES, LETTERS AND SAYINGS

Boston: D.L. Guernsey, Publisher, 1882. First Edition Thus. Almost anyone who encountered Lincoln in a significant way felt compelled sooner or later to tell about it, often less with a view to adding to the historical record than to caressing Lincoln's memory. As the supply and demand for reminiscences fed ecah other, they were sought out, collected, and published in large volumes. The first of these was The Lincoln Memorial: Album Immortelles, edited by Osborn Oldroyd in 1882. An Ohio-born veteran, Oldroyd may have been the first dedicated collector of Lincolniana; and about the time this book was published he moved into the old Lincoln homestead in Springfield and turned it into a museum of relics and memorabilia" (cf.Peterson, Merrill D. Lincoln In American Memory). In 1925, after many years of negotiation, Oldroyd sold his entire collection to the U.S. government for the sum of $50,000, preserving his lifelong obsession along with many artifacts which otherwise may have vanished. The volume was sold by subscription under several imprints, the first being one published by G.W. Carleton & Co. (NY, 1882). cf.Monaghan 987. Thick octavo (24cm); russet cloth, with titling and pictorial elements stamped in black and gilt on spine and front cover; brown endpapers; [iv],v-xxviii,29-571,[3]pp; with portrait frontispiece of Lincoln, and numerous plates of illustrations and facsimiles. Trivial wear and rubbing to extremities, minute loss to lower right corner of front endpaper, else a fresh, very Near Fine copy.