Rare Book Monthly
Book Catalogue Reviews - March - 2009 Issue
More Inexpensive Americana from David Lesser Antiquarian Books
Inexpensive Americana Part VI from David Lesser.
William Seward, New York Senator and future Secretary of State, echoed Lincoln's thoughts from his famous "House Divided" speech later in 1858 in a Speech...Delivered at Rochester, Monday, October 15, 1858. Says Seward, "...the United States must and will, sooner or later, become either entirely a slave-holding nation, or entirely a free-labor nation." Seward goes on to warn Northerners that the connection between slavery and blacks is "purely accidental." Next time, white laborers could be the slaves. Item 163. $125.
For collectors of the Dakotas, Lesser has a whole series of documents, but we warn you, these titles might not always stir great excitement. These are: Irrigation in South Dakota; Dry-Land Grains for Western North and South Dakota; Winter Wheat in Western South Dakota, Annual Report of the Commissioner of Insurance for the State of South Dakota; Report on the Drainage of the Eastern Parts of Cass, Traill, Grand Forks, Walsh, and Pembina Counties, North Dakota; and Grasses and Forage Plants of the Dakotas. None of these will set you back too much, as they are priced from $15-$35.
Item 140 is the report of the Quartermaster General from 1866: The Martyrs Who, for Our Country, Gave Up Their Lives in the Prison Pens in Andersonville, GA. Describing the post-war condition of Andersonville, the report states, "Nothing has been destroyed; as our exhausted, emaciated, enfeebled soldiers left it, so it stands to-day, as a monument to an inhumanity unparalleled in the annals of war." It includes a listing of the dead, over 200 pages long. $175.
David M. Lesser Fine Antiquarian Books can be reached at 203-389-8111 or dmlesser@lesserbooks.com. Their website is www.lesserbooks.com.
