(THOREAU, Henry David) [Jones, Samuel Arthur] editor — PERTAINING TO THOREAU

Detroit. Edwin B. Hill. First Edition. Original brown cloth with gilt lettering on the spine; xviii, 171 pages. Although there is no indication of such, this title was apparently limited to only 225 copies according to an issue of The Thoreau Society Bulletin dated July 1949 and the original prospectus, not present here. A collection of ten essays and reviews, some of the earliest appreciations or criticisms of Thoreau. Includes George Ripley's and James Russell Lowell's reviews of Thoreau's first book, Charles Frederick Briggs's review of WALDEN, as well as a piece by Amos Bronson Alcott and Henry Williams's memories of the Harvard Class of 1837, where he was a classmate of Thoreau's. . Owner name of A. W. Adair dated May 1901 on the front blank. Light wear. Near Fine. The editor was Thoreau's first bibliographer. Publisher Edwin Hill was one of the outstanding pioneers in the spreading of Thoreau's fame. He set the type of this book by hand, a task that took nearly two years, as he was also working as a full-time journalist during the process, and from which he suffered a breakdown that led to tuberculosis.