Item Details
Powhatan. A Metrical Romance, in Seven Cantos [signed by the author].
New York: Harper and Brothers, 1841. First Edition (presumed). Hardcover. Inscribed to Gardiner Kellogg (Dartmouth College graduate and minister in ME in the early 1800s). A long and infamously bad "historical poem".A well known review says nothing of the historical substance of the poem as he was too wrapped up in how bad it is, "We never saw any one so uncommonly bad." Smith, best known as one of the first vernacular humorists with his Maine Jack Downing character, here focuses on Powhatan, the man, not the tribe. Pocahontas does not play a major role (though there's a long note about her taken from Burk in the notes). A presentable copy of this rather uncommon work...scarce signed, as here. Good. No DJ as Issued. Moderate shelf/edge wear, tips through, fraying at head and tail, tide marks at bottom of text block, insect holes at rear hinge, light foxing at preliminaries, signed by author at ffep, else tight, bright and unmarred. Brown cloth boards, gilt lettering and pictorial element, in blind decorative elements. 8vo. 199pp. Notes. Inscribed by the author. Item #6245
Price: $450.00