Name/Title
Life of George WashingtonDescription
IRVING, Washington. Life of George Washington. New York: G.P. Putnam, 1855-9. 4to. 1st eds. 5 Vols. HOWES I-84. BAL 10192. One of 110 numbered copies on large paper. The large paper edition is scarce in the trade. Extra-illustrated by the publisher with numerous portraits, views, documents, and maps.
Irving's biography of Washington is one of two great 19th-century biographies of the president, the other being John Marshall's Life of George Washington (1804-7). The historian Daniel Boorstein, surveying the early lives of George Washington, concluded: "The best of these works was Washington Irving's five volumes" (The Americans, p.345). This is Washington Irving's magnum opus and his final work; he finished the fifth volume only eight months before he died. Irving was born 3 April 1783, the same week that New York City learned of the British ceasefire. Christened with the name of the great general, Irving was blessed by Washington at the age of six while the president was living in New York, then the nation's capital. Irving was diligent in his research. He gathered pertinent documents from Washington's family and friends. Travelling from his home in the lower Hudson River Valley to Washington, D.C., Irving examined the archives in the State Department and visited John Augustine Washington, then-owner of Mount Vernon. On the same trip, Irving also sought an audience at Arlington with Washington's step-grandson George Washington Parke Custis, "who has many personal recollections of Washington which he is fond of relating." Irving worried that he did not fully capture his subject and the period that shaped Washington. Positive comments on his draft from a nephew and a niece provided welcome encouragement. Irving thanked them both in late June 1853, noting to his nephew Pierre M. Irving: "I begin to hope that my labor has not been thrown away. Do not make a toil of reading the manuscript, but take it leisurely, so as to keep yourself fresh in the perusal, and to judge quietly and coolly of its merits and defects." A glowing review from R. Shelton Mackenzie in the New York Times received similar appreciation from Washington Irving: "It is deeply gratifying to meet with such approbation at such hands." Andrew Meyers in a 1976 re-assessment of this work, praised Irving for portraying Washington as "a flesh-and-blood general, and president, not any Olympian demi-god." With the bookplates of noted collector Charles Williston McAlpin. During his retirement he devoted much of his time to philanthropic activities and to his favorite pastime, "collecting engraved portraits of Washington." His collection of portraits is now in the New York Public Library.Other Names and Numbers
Other Number
HOWES I-84. BAL 10192.Condition
Notes
Contemporary brown crushed morocco, ruled elaborately in gilt with corner decorates, raised spine band s, compartments gilt, elaborate inner gilt dentelles, marbled endpapers, A.e.g. A very good or better set.