AMERICAN BOOKS With TAILS To 'EM.; A Private Pocket List of the Incomplete or Unfinished American Periodicals Transactions Memoirs Judicial Reports Laws Journals Legislative Documents and Other Coninuations and Workds in Progress Supplied to the British Museum and Other Libraries.
London: Printed Privately. At Stevens's Bibliographical Nuggetory No. 4 Trafalgar Square, 1873. 1st Printing. Unpaginated, though 40 pp of text. In this volume, Stevens details materials obtained for the British Museum [et al]. Head & tailpieces. 5-1/8" x 4-1/4". Original blue cloth binding with gilt stamped ornament to front cover. Marbled eps. General wear. Front joint cloth starting to fray. Slight gutter break at center of volume. A VG copy. Item #50401
Stevens is primarily remembered today as a bibliographer & bookseller. "In 1845 he went to London, where he was employed during most of the remainder of his life as a collector of Americana for the British Museum and for various public and private American libraries. He was engaged by Sir Anthony Panizzi, librarian of the British Museum, to collect historical books, documents, journals, etc., concerning North and South America; and he was purchasing agent for the Smithsonian Institution and for the Library of Congress, as well as for James Lenox, of New York, for whom he secured much of the valuable Americana in the Lenox library in that city, and for the John Carter Brown library, at Providence, Rhode Island." [Wiki]
NB. Also a bit of a humourist, he signs his name on the t.p. as "Henry Stevens GMB FSA Etc." GMB equates to Green Mountain Boy, a tribute to his Vermont heritage, born in Barnet VT, and he studied at Middlebury College before heading off to Yale, and then Harvard.
Price: $60.00