Description: Two volumes (complete), "The Garfield Edition", octavo size, a total of 854 pp., with wrappers and publisher's box. Lewis "Lew" Wallace (1827-1905) was an American Union general as well as author of this famous novel, "Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ". It was so well received upon publication that it surpassed "Uncle Tom's Cabin" (which, although many today believe fosters racism, at the time was seen as a powerful proponent for emancipation). Ben-Hur is considered by many to be "the most influential Christian book of the nineteenth century" (n.b., quote from "Ben-Hur: The Book That Shook the World" by Amu Lifton (2009), as cited by Wiki). According to the web site of Slate Magazine, it sold "perhaps as many as a million copies in its first three decades in print". This set "The Garfield Edition", was named for President James Garfield who was assassinated in September of 1881, with this edition brought out in his honour. "President James A. Garfield, a former professor of literature, devoured it. stealing chapters between meetings. He woke at 5:30 one morning so he could finish it in bed. 'With this beautiful and reverent book you have lightened the burden of my daily life,' he wrote to Wallace later that same day. Ben-Hur's publisher, Harper & Brothers, soon produced a Garfield Edition, with the president's letter reproduced as a foreword; the lavishly illustrated two-volume set sold for a then astronomical $30" (ibid). This set is a stunning example in very good condition, with the publisher's original box. Two volumes bound in bright orange silk, decorative border and lettering on the front boards in gilt, decoration and gilt lettering on the spines, top edges gilt, ten photo-gravures in each volume (including the frontis) each with lettered tissue guard, replete with black-and-white drawings for chapter head- and tail-pieces, as well as pictorial borders and in-text illustrations, which are on just about every page of text; octavo size (8 1/8" by 5 3/8"), continuously paginated thus: Vol. 1, [1-20] 21-438, Vol. 2, [439-454] 455-854.
Price: 149 USD
Location: Taos, New Mexico
End Time: 2024-11-12T21:15:39.000Z
Shipping Cost: 7.63 USD
Product Images
Item Specifics
All returns accepted: ReturnsNotAccepted
Binding: Leather
Place of Publication: New York
Signed: No
Publisher: Harper & Brothers
Subject: Literature & Fiction
Original/Facsimile: Original
Year Printed: 1892
Language: English
Special Attributes: Collector's Edition, Illustrated, Luxury Edition
Author: Lew Wallace
Region: North America
Personalized: No
Topic: Literature
Country/Region of Manufacture: United States
