![[3735142] Indian Summer. Autumn Poems and Sketches. Louise Clarkson Whitelock.](https://rareamericana.cdn.bibliopolis.com/pictures/3735142.jpg?width=768&height=1000&fit=bounds&auto=webp&v=1753205070)
Indian Summer. Autumn Poems and Sketches.
An American gift and color plate book with poetry by Thaxter, Larcom, and others…
First edition. A richly designed American color plate gift book pairing 12 botanical illustrations by Louise Clarkson Whitelock (1865-1928), with poems by Celia Thaxter, Rose Terry Cooke, Lucy Larcom, Helen Hunt Jackson (as H.H.), and Alice Cary, alongside canonical figures including R.W. Emerson, J. G. Whittier, W. C. Bryant, and H. W. Longfellow.
“Louise Clarkson Whitelock was born in Baltimore in 1851, and was a founding member of the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore. She was an active member from 1890-1897. Whitelock’s publications were mostly poetry, specifically books of children’s poems. She had a very active publishing career under the name L. Clarkson between 1877 and 1898, and her poetry was advertised and endorsed in magazines like Publisher’s Weekly. Whitelock was also a very talented artist, illustrating her own books and raising her daughter to be an artist in her footsteps.” (Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore) For a previous and similar effort by Clarkson see The Gathering of the Lilies, Philadelphia: J. L. Sibole & Co. (1877).
A well-preserved copy and a handsome example of American literary and botanical illustration for the gift book market of the 1880s.
Description: Indian Summer. Autumn Poems and Sketches.
New York: E. P. Dutton & Company, 713 Broadway, 1881. Small folio (13 x 10 in.). Original publisher’s pictorial green cloth, beveled edges, stamped in gilt and black with decorative botanical motif. All edges gilt. Illustrated throughout, including 12 colored flower plates, with tissue guards, drawn by the author, as noted in Bennett, American Color Plate Books, p. 24. Additional illustrations throughout. Contemporary gift inscription on the front flyleaf: “Presented to Miss Annie M. Morrison by the Friends she leaves in Ballard Vale [Andover, Massachusetts], July 30th, 1882.” Morrison was the daughter of merchant John Morrison. The family lived at 197 Andover Street in a house they purchased from Hector Linn, its original owner. (Andover Historic Preservation) Touch of wear at ends of spine and extremities. Overall, a very good bright and clean copy.
[3735142]Price: $250.00