THE BOAT CLUB; Or, The Bunkers of Rippleton

Boston: Brown, Bazin, and Company, 1855. Good.. First edition of this "tale for boys," a pioneering novel of juvenile adventure fiction. THE BOAT CLUB was a wildly popular book that went through 60 editions and spawned 5 more books in the "Boat Club Series," sparking a wider trend for "boy books" - home-grown American tales of adventure, best recognized today in Mark Twain's canonical ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER and HUCKLEBERRY FINN. Jacob Blanck's foundational bibliography of "Best-loved American Juvenile Books" describes this book's binding with a blind-stamped publisher's monogram on the front board (rather than the gilt-stamped scene here), and no gilt edges: this is likely a deluxe variant produced in a much smaller number than the dominant issue. Already a scarce book, we have not run across another copy in the deluxe pictorial gilt binding. 12mo in sixes. 6.5'' x 4.25''. Original brown pictorial cloth elaborately stamped in gilt, the boards recreating the plate "Cheering the Bunkers" facing page 94 (front board in gilt; rear board in blind), spine depicting boys in a boat down its length. All edges gilt, yellow endpapers (first fly leaf lacking). Illustrated with frontispiece and 3 full-page black-and-white plates. 252 pages. Pencil gift inscription from "Sister Nellie" to "Katie E. Talbot" on recto of frontispiece. Boards recased, shallow wear to spine ends. Frontispiece and title with dampstain at fore-edge, some marginal foxing and thumbsoiling to text, with offsetting mark between pages 92-3 from laid in item (no longer present).