Life of George Washington by Jared Sparks, Period Binding, Later Printing, 1843

Sparks, Jared. The Life of George Washington. Auburn and Buffalo: Miller Orton & Mulligan, 1854. Later printing. Two volumes in one. Octavo. Rebound in 1/4 brown leather and cloth boards, with gilt titles, tooling, and raised bands. New archival cloth slipcase. Presented is a later edition of Jared Sparks’ esteemed biography, The Life of George Washington. First published in 1839, Sparks’ The Life of George Washington is one of the earliest and most intimate biographies of our first President. This printing was published in Auburn and Buffalo by Miller Orton & Mulligan, in 1854. Impressively detailed, the biography is embellished with 14 engraved plates of portraits, views, and battle plans...

This map, printed in 1840, is a detailed representation of Washington, D.C. in the mid-19th century. The map shows block numbers, wards, and government buildings as well as details o...

10 Volumes. Jared Sparks, The Works of Benjamin Franklin, with notes and a life of the author. Rebound in full red morocco. Gilt-tooling on the covers and raised band spines. All edg...

Extraordinarily early (1806) printed linen kerchief glorifying George Washington, Germantown print works, Germantown, Pennsylvania Printed in sepia ink on coarse, white linen, this patriotic kerchief shows a standing portrait of George Washington, above which is a swag valance and the words “The Effect of Principle, Behold the Man”. The portrait is based on a mezzotint after Gilbert Stuart’s very famous painting of Washington in his later years. Stuart painted it in oil on canvas for a wealthy merchant by the name of William Constable, who commissioned the work for Alexander Hamilton. The kerchief is interesting because it is both American-made and documented. This is exceptionally unusual for any printed textile of the 19th century or prior and the earlier the time period the more unlikely an object is to be identified. This kerchief and a companion piece entitled “The Love of Truth Mark the Boy” (also glorifying Washington through the fabled story of the cherry tree), were made ca 1806 by Germantown Print Works in Germantown, Pennsylvania. To the left of Washington's image is a portion of his infamous farewell address to his troops at the end of the Revolutionary War. To the right is a short excerpt from his eulogy. Below these are three images. In the center is a square-rigged tall ship with “Commercial Union” above it, flanked by the American eagle on the left and the British lion...