Ten Months in Brazil: with, Notes on the Paraguayan War by Codman, John - 1872

New York: James Miller, 1872 218pp. Inscribed in old ink to front free endpaper: "Major Ben Perley Poore with the compliments of the author, Washington, Feb. 12, 1872." This edition features all four engravings: "The Entrance to Rio De Janeiro," "Cottage at Rhodeo," "The Drive to Parahiba," and "Paranagua." It is a recollection of Codman's voyage to Brazil in 1867 to deliver the steamer Cotopaxi to the Brazilian government after its decommission from the U.S. Navy. Codman's primary topic here, however, is an economic treatise on the post- Civil War economic changes affecting trade: how the end of slavery in the United States has globalized the cotton trade, specifically to the remaining areas of slave labor in South America; how a rising abolitionist movement in Brazil will thwart that trade; how resettlement of former American slaves from the American South could help offset labor shortages in Brazil caused in part by the conduct of protracted war with Paraguay. *** Author JOHN CODMAN (1814-1900), of Dorchester Massachusetts was a sea captain-turned-writer/journalist whose career bridged the age of sail and steam. He wrote one early novel, under the pseudonym "Captain Ringbolt," called Sailors' Life and Sailors' Yarns (1847), which received grudging praise in review by a young Herman Melville. This current volume was the first of three nautical travelogues. He was the well-educated, (Phillips Andover and two years of Amherst College) son of a notable clergyman, but chose to leave school for a career at sea, making captain at the age of twenty two, and establishing his own shipping business by thirty three years of age. His commercial travels took him to South America, India and China. His reputation among the merchant marine was well established: he held a record for making a remarkable profit of $100,000 on a single cargo of China tea. While born the son of a Congregational minister, Codman was no doubt influenced by other of his family members, specifically his maternal grandfather, Captain Ebenezer Wheelwright of Newburyport, as well as his maternal uncle, Captain William Wheelwright, both of whom once resided within stone's-throw of this bookseller. ***BENJAMIN PERLEY POORE (1820-1887), the books' recipient, must have been known to John Codman as a fellow journalist with a national reputation. Both had corresponded from abroad; both had begun their journalistic careers with Boston newspapers, and they had family connections to the Newburyport, Massachusetts area. Condition: This volume is in Good antiquarian condition, with a moderate age toned interior, text block generally firm. There is slight sooty damage to the top of the first engraving, and the book's exterior shows definite signs of water damage, including the bubbling of the buckram on front and rear boards (the edges of the text block are not affected). The cause of this primarily-exterior damage is from a fire at Indian Hill Farm, West Newbury in the 1950's, the ancestral home of the Presentee, Major Ben Perley Poore. The fire was reported on contemporaneously because it destroyed a large part of a idiosyncratic 60 room mansion built from various architectural remnants of early American buildings of note. Provenance: purchased from the direct descendants of Maj. Ben Perley Poore. Literature: World Cat No. 557954233, lists only two copies of this edition, both located outside the United States.. Inscribed by author. Hard Cover. Good.