Publisher and Year: New York and London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, MCMXXIV (1924)
Edition: First edition (stated), first printing (copyright page bearing the “H-Y” code and lacking a reprint statement, as called for). Variants exist with no known priority, with some copies lacking ads in Vol. 1 and using captions on the tissue guards (both as here). Although issued primarily in cloth, BAL notes that a small number of unbound sheets were distributed pre-publication to select antiquarian booksellers and collectors for custom binding. The present example, bound by the Stikeman bindery, may represent one such copy given that the binding is contemporary, but we have not been able to locate documentation identifying the recipients of these advance sheets. (BAL 3537; Macdonnel, 1998).
Condition and Description: Small quarto (9.5" x 6.25"), contemporarily bound in half crimson morocco and cloth, stamped in gilt, six spine compartments with raised bands, patterned endpapers, top edge gilt, photographic frontispieces with tissue guards, 368 pp. (Vol. 1), 365 pp. (Vol. 2). Introduction by A.B. Paine. Complete, with all printed pages, blanks, and tissue guards present. Clean pages, with very occasional and small instances of age spotting. No writing, underlining, or prior owner's markings. Rubbing to the cloth, corners a little bumped (and three exposed on Vol. 1), a small chip to the leather of the spine crown of Vol. 1. Verso of the front free endpaper of each volume stamped "Bound by Stikeman & Co., N.Y." in small lettering. Henry Stikeman was a leading American fine binder active in New York in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
"This autobiography of mine is a mirror, and I am looking at myself in it all the time. Incidentally I notice the people that pass along at my back -- I get glimpses of them in the mirror -- and whenever they say or do anything that can help advertise me and flatter me and raise me in my own estimation, I set these things down in my autobiography. I rejoice when a king or a duke comes my way and makes himself useful to this autobiography, but they are rare customers, with wide intervals between. I can use them with good effect as lighthouses and monuments along my way, but for real business I depend upon the common herd."
Inventory ID: 049 - 351 - 824
Publisher and Year: New York and London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, MCMXXIV (1924)
Edition: First edition (stated), first printing (copyright page bearing the “H-Y” code and lacking a reprint statement, as called for). Variants exist with no known priority, with some copies lacking ads in Vol. 1 and using captions on the tissue guards (both as here). Although issued primarily in cloth, BAL notes that a small number of unbound sheets were distributed pre-publication to select antiquarian booksellers and collectors for custom binding. The present example, bound by the Stikeman bindery, may represent one such copy given that the binding is contemporary, but we have not been able to locate documentation identifying the recipients of these advance sheets. (BAL 3537; Macdonnel, 1998).
Condition and Description: Small quarto (9.5" x 6.25"), contemporarily bound in half crimson morocco and cloth, stamped in gilt, six spine compartments with raised bands, patterned endpapers, top edge gilt, photographic frontispieces with tissue guards, 368 pp. (Vol. 1), 365 pp. (Vol. 2). Introduction by A.B. Paine. Complete, with all printed pages, blanks, and tissue guards present. Clean pages, with very occasional and small instances of age spotting. No writing, underlining, or prior owner's markings. Rubbing to the cloth, corners a little bumped (and three exposed on Vol. 1), a small chip to the leather of the spine crown of Vol. 1. Verso of the front free endpaper of each volume stamped "Bound by Stikeman & Co., N.Y." in small lettering. Henry Stikeman was a leading American fine binder active in New York in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
"This autobiography of mine is a mirror, and I am looking at myself in it all the time. Incidentally I notice the people that pass along at my back -- I get glimpses of them in the mirror -- and whenever they say or do anything that can help advertise me and flatter me and raise me in my own estimation, I set these things down in my autobiography. I rejoice when a king or a duke comes my way and makes himself useful to this autobiography, but they are rare customers, with wide intervals between. I can use them with good effect as lighthouses and monuments along my way, but for real business I depend upon the common herd."
Inventory ID: 049 - 351 - 824
Image 1 of 24
Image 2 of 24
Image 3 of 24
Image 4 of 24
Image 5 of 24
Image 6 of 24
Image 7 of 24
Image 8 of 24
Image 9 of 24
Image 10 of 24
Image 11 of 24
Image 12 of 24
Image 13 of 24
Image 14 of 24
Image 15 of 24
Image 16 of 24
Image 17 of 24
Image 18 of 24
Image 19 of 24
Image 20 of 24
Image 21 of 24
Image 22 of 24
Image 23 of 24
Image 24 of 24