Is He Popenjoy? [Rare; An important part of Publishing History]

Trollope, Anthony

Price: 2850.00 USD

New York: Harper & Brothers, 1878. A Very Good copy of the EXCEEDINGLY RARE First American edition of this Trollope novel. An extremely rare (of the "utmost rarity" per Smith) copy of the TRUE FIRST AMERICAN EDITION of Trollope's "Is He Popenjoy?", published by Harper & Brothers in their newspaper format Franklin Square Library, this being the inaugural publication, "Number 1", in the then-new format, an important event in Publishing history. This is a Very Good copy of the RARE TRUE FIRST AMERICAN EDITION, having been bound, complete with all of Smith's "State A" terminal advertisements, by the Brooklyn Public Library (showing their library sticker with the discard stamp on the front pastedown) in boards and secured to the boards by stitching to the spine (the pages show a few library notes in pencil to the title page, a tape repair to the title page and to the length of page 5, a short closed tear to the left margin of page 64 with a minor invasion of the text, intermittent brown staining -all text remaining easily legible, pencil checks beside a number of items in advertisement list at the end of the volume, and marginal chips and tears with minimal marginal loss to a few pages). All in all, this copy is in remarkable condition given the ephemeral nature of the publication. The Franklin Square Library series was published by Harper to meet the large demand for literature at a low price. Usually selling for 10 or 15 cents a copy, the series eventually replaced Harper's Library of Select Novels Series and its Half-Hour Series. Trollope's "Is He Popenjoy" was the first issue in the Series, and all of the remaining Trollope works published by Harper (except for some of his nonfiction works) were published in this Series. (Munro published the first American editions of Trollope's "Cousin Henry", "Two Heroines of Plumplington" and "The Landleaguers" in his newspaper format Seaside Library series.) (See Smith's Bibliography of Trollope's US publications.) Smith states: "This new series and its advertising logic sounded the death knell for collectors. First editions in this series are no longer books, but newspapers. Their fragility, format, and ephemeral makeup discouraged most buyers from keeping them.....few have survived." According to Smith, these issues are "rarely seen for sale and are usually found only in private collections and in certain research libraries." An extraordinary opportunity for the Trollope collector. Most Trollope collectors will never see this issue, much less own one. As with Trollope's first novels, the chance to own one is unlikely to arise often, if at all, for the vast majority of Trollope collectors. AN EXTREMELY SCARCE TROLLOPE FIRST and a collection-distinguishing item which occupies an important place in American publishing history. First American edition.