Details
RAFINESQUE, CONSTANTINE SAMUEL. Atlantic Journal, and Friend of Knowledge. In eight numbers. Containing about 160 original articles and tracts on Natural and Historical Sciences, the Description of about 150 New Plants, and 100 New Animals or Fossils. Many Vocabularies of Languages, Historical and Geological Facts, &c. &c. &c. Philadelphia: [Published quarterly at the Office of the Atlantic Journal], 1832-33.
8 numbers, 8vo, 235 x 156mm. (9 5/16 x 6 in.) [nos. 6-8 smaller], modern buckram-backed boards, original printed wrappers for numbers 1-4 preserved, uncut (except for the 4-leaf "Extra" to number 3), stitch holes, one or two small mostly marginal holes, light dampstaining, occasional light foxing or small stains.
FIRST EDITION, general title-leaf with index on verso and advertisement leaf bound in at front, six text wood engravings, one full-page woodcut and letterpress "Tabular View of the Compared Atlantic Alphabets & Glyphs of Africa and America", "Advertisements and Notices" printed on versos of front wrappers and rectos and versos of back wrappers of nos. 1-2, and on back wrapper versos only of nos. 3-4.
An astonishing compendium of facts, assertions, theories and convictions that faithfully reflects the encyclopaedic character of Rafinesque's interests. Only these 8 issues were published, as Rafinesque failed to attract a sufficient number of subscribers to continue publication of the journal on the terms that he had projected -- as "the cheapest periodical in the United States, twelve numbers yearly of nearly 400 pages & 24 figures for one dollar!" (no. 8, p. 211). (A series of continuously paginated "Extras" to numbers 6-7, is known in one copy only: cf. Stafleu TL-2 8583). Rafinesque later attributed the Journal's demise to its being "too learned and too liberal" (Life of Travels, p. 94).
Nearly all of the contributions are Rafinesque's own (some under fictitious names), in spite of his numerous attempts to simultaneously attract contributions and clear out his attic through repeated offers of "Literary Prizes... "First Prize, of fifty dollars in books... Second Prize, of twenty-five dollars in Botanical books and Herbariums..." (cf. wrapper advertisements). His contributions range from articles on botany, zoology, geology, anthropology and philology (including several articles on Native American languages), to discourses on the history of mankind, philosophical poems, and analyses of such problems as the "Impediments to Knowledge, Literature and Science, in the United States" (no. 4, p. 125). The singular breadth of Rafinesque's interests did enable him to reach such startlingly perceptive conclusions as this pre-Darwinian statement concerning the evolutionary tendencies of living creatures: "There is a tendency to deviations and mutations through plants and animals by gradual steps at remote irregular periods...Every variety is a deviation which becomes a Sp[ecies] as soon as it is permanent by reproduction. Deviations in essential organs may thus gradually become N[ew] G[enera]..." (no. 8, ÿ. 164).
RARE. No complete copies have come on the market since at least 1933.
Fitzpatrick 786; Sabin 67445; Stafleu TL-2 8582.
Provenance:
Amos Binney, inscription on first page of number 5 (p. 155)
Arthur Fairfield Gray, bookplate
Dr. Evan Morton Evans (1870-1955)
Daniel Webster Evans (1907-1966).
8 numbers, 8vo, 235 x 156mm. (9 5/16 x 6 in.) [nos. 6-8 smaller], modern buckram-backed boards, original printed wrappers for numbers 1-4 preserved, uncut (except for the 4-leaf "Extra" to number 3), stitch holes, one or two small mostly marginal holes, light dampstaining, occasional light foxing or small stains.
FIRST EDITION, general title-leaf with index on verso and advertisement leaf bound in at front, six text wood engravings, one full-page woodcut and letterpress "Tabular View of the Compared Atlantic Alphabets & Glyphs of Africa and America", "Advertisements and Notices" printed on versos of front wrappers and rectos and versos of back wrappers of nos. 1-2, and on back wrapper versos only of nos. 3-4.
An astonishing compendium of facts, assertions, theories and convictions that faithfully reflects the encyclopaedic character of Rafinesque's interests. Only these 8 issues were published, as Rafinesque failed to attract a sufficient number of subscribers to continue publication of the journal on the terms that he had projected -- as "the cheapest periodical in the United States, twelve numbers yearly of nearly 400 pages & 24 figures for one dollar!" (no. 8, p. 211). (A series of continuously paginated "Extras" to numbers 6-7, is known in one copy only: cf. Stafleu TL-2 8583). Rafinesque later attributed the Journal's demise to its being "too learned and too liberal" (Life of Travels, p. 94).
Nearly all of the contributions are Rafinesque's own (some under fictitious names), in spite of his numerous attempts to simultaneously attract contributions and clear out his attic through repeated offers of "Literary Prizes... "First Prize, of fifty dollars in books... Second Prize, of twenty-five dollars in Botanical books and Herbariums..." (cf. wrapper advertisements). His contributions range from articles on botany, zoology, geology, anthropology and philology (including several articles on Native American languages), to discourses on the history of mankind, philosophical poems, and analyses of such problems as the "Impediments to Knowledge, Literature and Science, in the United States" (no. 4, p. 125). The singular breadth of Rafinesque's interests did enable him to reach such startlingly perceptive conclusions as this pre-Darwinian statement concerning the evolutionary tendencies of living creatures: "There is a tendency to deviations and mutations through plants and animals by gradual steps at remote irregular periods...Every variety is a deviation which becomes a Sp[ecies] as soon as it is permanent by reproduction. Deviations in essential organs may thus gradually become N[ew] G[enera]..." (no. 8, ÿ. 164).
RARE. No complete copies have come on the market since at least 1933.
Fitzpatrick 786; Sabin 67445; Stafleu TL-2 8582.
Provenance:
Amos Binney, inscription on first page of number 5 (p. 155)
Arthur Fairfield Gray, bookplate
Dr. Evan Morton Evans (1870-1955)
Daniel Webster Evans (1907-1966).