Young Jonathan: The American Book For Boys And Girls

Published by The American News Company, New York, 1885

About this Item

Possible that this book is a first edition. The copyright, from D. Lothrop & Co., is 1885. That's the only date on the copyright page. On the title page the publisher (perhaps distributor) is given as The American News Company. However on the blank verso of the frontispiece there is a lightly penciled name and date ( 'R. Lee Robinson, Christmas, 1885'). What is clearer is that this is a very rare book. There's only one other copy for sale on the Internet. There are 'Over Two Hundred Illustrations.' Under the title it states 'Stories of Adventure, Exploration, Travel, of Manual Arts, of Natural History, of Sports and Pastimes, of Home Life, of Biography, History, etc.' Also 'A Complete Compendium Of Instruction And Entertainment For Young People.' As you can see from the photos, the covers are in pretty decent shape. They are surprisingly quite clean. There is rub-through at all four corners, and also on the middle edge of the rear cover. The binding at the spine is very solid. The page edges don't appear to have any stains. The book is nicely square. Between the inside front cover and the first page (which is a page with a large advertisement) some of the webbing is exposed. If you pull at the front cover from the side it has a little bit of give, but because it is so strongly bound on the outside and because the webbing is 90% intact, there is no danger of the cover detaching. The juncture between the rear inside cover and last page of the book (which is also a large advertisement) is identical to that of the one just described. I made a decision to turn over every single page in the book. I was quite pleased with what I found and didn't find. I didn't find any other instances of cracks or spaces between any of the pages. Almost all of the pages are nicely tight. I counted, in total, seven edge tears, all of them fairly small. Some tears are hard to see so it's possible that there are a small number that I missed. This count excludes the aforementioned first advertising page which has a number of tears off its bottom and middle edge. There are two Contents pages and two Illustrations pages. The previous owner penciled three comments on the white margins of these pages. He also put small penciled dashes to the right or left of some of the referenced page numbers. I found only four pages in the text that had a penciled note in the margin. There is no underlining or other writing anywhere the book. The previous owner seems to have some familiarity with what was being written about. At least one of these small pencilings seems to be correcting something. The pages are in quite solid condition. I saw only the occasional crease. The same can be said for soiling, very minor and very occasional. The great majority of the pages are quite clean, although they are, as expected, slightly toned, also nicely supple, not stiff. There is no foxing anywhere. There are no markings anywhere. There are no names in the book. That covers the condition. Seller Inventory # 002701

Bibliographic Details

Title: Young Jonathan: The American Book For Boys ...

Publisher: The American News Company, New York

Publication Date: 1885

Binding: Hardcover

Condition: Good Plus