1869 ALCOTT LITTLE WOMEN 2 VOLS EARLY PRINTING CIVIL WAR GUNSHIP CAPTAIN ASSOC.

Description

1869 ALCOTT LITTLE WOMEN EARLY PRINTINGS CIVIL WAR GUNSHIP CAPTAIN ASSOCIATION
Alcott, Louisa M.
Little Women or, Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy.
Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1869.
AND
Alcott, Louisa M.
Little Women or, Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy. Part Second.
Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1869. Two volumes, octavos, cloth, [i-vi] + 7-341 pages + 10 pages adverts; [i]-iv + 5-359 pages + 8 pages adverts. Volume the Second meets the required points for the second state of the First edition with the exception that the end papers are not coated brown. Also of note it that both volumes lack the stamped design on their front boards usually seen on first editions. Please see entry #’s 158 & 159 in Volume One of Blanck’s
Bibliography of American Literature.
Each volume illustrated with a frontispiece and 3 plates.
Early printings of Alcott’s classic tale
Little Women
are understandably difficult to acquire. These 2 books, published in 1869, have the added distinction of being owned by Elizabeth Munroe Townsend, the daughter of Civil War U. S. Navy ship Captain Robert Townsend (1819-1866) who commanded the
USS Essex
, an ironclad gunship that patrolled the Mississippi River, from 1863-64. He died of a heatstroke commanding the
USS Wachusett
in China in 1866.
Wikipedia notes “
On June 19, 1850, Townsend married Harriet Munro, the daughter of Nathan Munro and Cynthia Champlin, of Elbridge, New York, The couple had three children; a son, Robert Townsend, Jr., born October 4, 1854, and daughters Mary Walker Townsend, born December 23, 1858, and Elizabeth Munroe Townsend, born July 19, 1860.
”
The bookplate of Elizabeth Munroe Townsend is affixed to the front paste down of Volume One and one is laid-in Volume Two. Also laid-in is a black and white photograph of her sister, Mary W. Townsend, showing Mary as an aunt posing with her niece as well as three other photographs of extended members of their family. An inscription written on the recto of the frontispiece in Volume One reads “Mrs. Robert Townsend [in ink] Elizabeth M. Townsend from Mama 1871 {in pencil]. Elizabeth would have been 5 years old when her mother gifted her these books.
All in all, an early printing of Alcott’s
Little Women
with an interesting American Civil War association.
Condition notes: Offered As Is, with all faults.
Volume One: Hinges cracked, front end page, frontis and title detached, intermittent smudging and handling wear to pages, cloth split along back joint, crown and foot chipped.
Volume Two: Hinges cracked, front end page, frontis, table of contents and title detached, intermittent smudging and handling wear to pages, scrawling in pencil at bottom of page iv (presumably Elizabeth’s handiwork), several other instances of smaller pencil markings in the text, crown and foot chipped.