Adams, Henry Mont Saint Michel and Chartres Washington (DC) 1912
[Adams, Henry.] Mont Saint Michel and Chartres. Washington (DC): 1912. vi, 371 pp. 4to, original blue cloth, morocco label (label a bit scuffed, slight rubbing to ends of spine); in a blue cloth folding case. Second edition, privately printed, and significantly revised and enlarged; first published privately in 1904. Presentation copy, characteristically inscribed on the front flyleaf in Adams' bold handwriting: "For Mrs. Henry White, with the regards of Henry Adams, Washington, March, 1912." Henry White was one of the most influential American diplomats of his day; he and his wife, Margaret Stuyvesant Rutherfurd White, were among Adams' closest friends in Washington. Mrs. White was the daughter of the astronomer Lewis Rutherfurd. With her important family connections, her attractive good looks, and her keen intellect, she was a driving force behind her husband's diplomatic career and a notable presence in the political society of the time. This book has long been recognized as a classic study of the life and art of medieval France. The first edition of 1904 was privately printed in an almost identical format, as was, three years later, The Education of Henry Adams, one of the most remarkable and original American autobiographies. The extensive revisions here bring the text closer to the first regularly published edition, which appeared in 1913. There is no precise record of how many copies Adams printed and distributed of his large blue-cloth volumes; a figure of something more than 50 and something less than 100 would probably be accurate. This second private printing of Mont Saint Michel and Chartres seems, if anything, to have been smaller than the others (to judge from the number of surviving copies). In excellent condition, with a fine inscription. BAL 37.
£3250
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