Poems

Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1888, 1888. First edition. Edges of the cloth skillfully repaired; very good copy.. 8vo, original decorated green cloth, gilt lettering. Frontis portrait. Errata slip between pages 4 & 5. The scarce collected poems by the Concord minister and author David Atwood Wasson (1823-1887), one of the most highly regarded of the Transcendentalist writers, whose poems had previously only appeared in periodicals. This posthumous collection - Wasson's first and only book - was compiled with a preface by Ednah Dow Cheney, who also wrote about Louisa May Alcott and edited her letters and journals. Bookplate on the front paste-down of James Vila Blake (1842-1925), Unitarian minister, writer, poet, and playwright (see Wikipedia), with an inscription to him in pencil, dated Christmas, 1887. Annotations in pencil by Blake in the margins and rear endpapers, commenting on the poems. Blake attended Harvard College in the 1860s and served in several Unitarian churches in the Boston area, before moving to Illinois. It is likely that he knew Wasson. Blake left his library to the Meadville Theological School, Chicago; this copy bears their bookplate, pocket, number, and small label ("Blake") on the spine. Meadville clumsily sold off parts of their library within the past 15 years, none of which was properly marked as deaccessioned. Wasson's Poems appears to not have ever been borrowed from the library.