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Details
GRANT, Ulysses S. Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant. New York: Charles L. Webster, 1885.
2 volumes, 4o (230 x 140mm). Half-titles. Engraved frontispieces, maps and illustrations, facsimiles of Ft. Donelson and Appomattox surrender documents. Contemporary calf, marbled endpapers and edges, spine gilt (corners rubbed, some nicks and stains on covers). Cloth folding case.
FIRST EDITION of Grant's classic war memoir. He had not planned to write his memoirs and only agreed to do so after a Wall Street swindler stole his life's savings in 1884. Mark Twain proposed an advantageous arrangement whereby Grant received 70 of the net sales, which proved highly profitable as 300,000 copies of the Memoirs sold in the first two years after publication and made $450,000 for Grant's impoverished widow. The work has perennially been a critical and commercial success. Critic Edmund Wilson agreed with Twain that the Personal Memoirs rank with the Commentaries of Julius Ceasar and went on to say "it is also, in its way--like Herndon's Lincoln or like Walden or Leaves of Grass--a unique expression of the national character" (Patriotic Gore, 132-133). (2)
2 volumes, 4o (230 x 140mm). Half-titles. Engraved frontispieces, maps and illustrations, facsimiles of Ft. Donelson and Appomattox surrender documents. Contemporary calf, marbled endpapers and edges, spine gilt (corners rubbed, some nicks and stains on covers). Cloth folding case.
FIRST EDITION of Grant's classic war memoir. He had not planned to write his memoirs and only agreed to do so after a Wall Street swindler stole his life's savings in 1884. Mark Twain proposed an advantageous arrangement whereby Grant received 70 of the net sales, which proved highly profitable as 300,000 copies of the Memoirs sold in the first two years after publication and made $450,000 for Grant's impoverished widow. The work has perennially been a critical and commercial success. Critic Edmund Wilson agreed with Twain that the Personal Memoirs rank with the Commentaries of Julius Ceasar and went on to say "it is also, in its way--like Herndon's Lincoln or like Walden or Leaves of Grass--a unique expression of the national character" (Patriotic Gore, 132-133). (2)