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The Baltimore Book (an Annual)



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The preface, titled “ADVERTISEMENT” (pp. vii-viii) reads:

IN offering the Baltimore Book to the favorable attention of the public, we would remark, that it was at first designed merely to present a specimen of Baltimore talent on the same plan of the compilations recently published in Boston, and Philadelphia. Subsequently, however, the publishers determined to make the book consist entirely of original articles furnished by writers of this city, and to get it up in a style of elegance unsurpassed by any of the annuals of the season.

In pursuance of this design, the book has been published. Although articles have been prepared in haste, and the volume forced through the press with great rapidity, yet we have no apologies to ofer for its character, believeing that it will not suffer in a comparison of literary merit, with any of the nnuals pulished this year.

A word may be necessary in regard to the embellishements. It was only desinged, when the book went to press, to give a Frontispiece, and an engraved title page. During the progress of [p. viii:] the work, however, the other embellishments were determined on nd executed in great haste.

If the book receives that encouragement which the publishers think their enterprize merits, it is their intention to continue it from year to year.

Among the aforementioned “compilations recently published” are: The Philadelphia Book (Philadelphia: Key & Biddle, 1836); The Boston Book (Boston: Light & Horton, 1836, also The Boston Book, Boston: Light & Stearns, 1837); and The New York Book of Poetry (New-York: George Deaborn, 1837).

 


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The Baltimore Book

 


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Description:

Full Title: The Baltimore Book, a Christmas and New Year's Present

Issued: Issued late in 1837. Reissued, with a new title page (bearing no imprint date), but with 1839 added to the bottom of the spine. The contents are identical with the volume sold in 1837.

Editor(s): Edited by W[illiam]. H[enry]. Carpenter and T[imothy]. S[hay]. Arthur. (Shay was later the editor of Arthur's Ladies Magazine, which carried the first printing of Poe's tale “The Sphinx.” Poe's letter to Carpenter of February 28, 1837 refers to the proposed collection.)

Publisher(s): Bayly & Burns

Location: Baltimore

 


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Bibliographic data:

12mo (7 1/4 in x 4 1/2 in). Pages [i]-[xi], [17] - 292. Illustrated by six steel engravings, including a presentation page and a vignette title page. Binding: full leather, in various colors (brown, blue and green),  gilt-stamped ornamentation. A very fine picture of the Washington monument appears on the spine, with a picture of the war monument on both the front and rear covers.

 


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Census of Copies:

There are so many surviving copies of these volumes that a complete listing is impractical and unnecessary. No inscribed, annotated or presentation copies of note are known.

 


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Bibliography:

  • Faxon, Frederick Winthrop, Literary Annuals and Gift Books, Boston: The Boston Book Company, 1912, p. 7. (Revised, expanded and corrected from a series of articles printed in the Bulletin of Bibliography, 1908-1911. Reprinted by Great Britian: Private Library Association, 1973, as Literary Annuals and Gift Books: A Bibliography 1823-1903, with additional introductory essays by Eleanore Jamieson and Iain Bain) (A bibliographic listing of issues.)
  • Heartman, Charles F. and James R. Canny, A Bibliography of First Printings of the Writings of Edgar Allan Poe, Hattiesburg, Mississippi: The Book Farm, 1943, pp. 40-41.
  • 19th Century Bookshop sale Catalogue, The Poe Catalogue, Baltimore, 1992, p. 32 (listed as item 52.)
  • Thompson, Ralph, American Literary Annuals & Gift Books, 1825-1865, New York: H. W. Wilson Company, 1936, p. 111. (Reprinted, with the addition of an index of microfilm editions, by Archon Books, 1967.) (This is merely a brief descriptive entry in the catalog section of the book.)

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[S:0 - JAS] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Works - The Baltimore Book (an annual)