Spectacles for Young Eyes. Boston.

JUVENILE GUIDEBOOK TO BOSTON

First edition. 8vo. Engraved frontispiece and extra engraved title-page. 6 engraved plates plus numerous wood-cuts in text. Original mauve cloth with gilt pictorial cover vignette, spine faded. Lacks front free endpaper. Very good otherwise. viii,9-202,14 ads. pp. Boston, Walker, Wise & Co,

One of a series of eight guide books for juvenile audiences produced Sarah West Lander (1820-1872). Little is known of the author herself, though she was born in Salem into a wealthy and prominent New England family. Distant relatives of the painter Benjamin West, her sister Louise Lander followed in his artistic footsteps and became a talented sculptor, living in the American ex-patriot community in Rome. Her most famous sculpture, Virginia Dare, depicts the first child born of British settlers in America subsequently lost with the Roanoke colony. Her brother, Frederick W. Lander was a trans-continental surveyor, prolific poet and Civil War General in the Union Army.

 

This was the first published guide in the "Spectacles" series. The others were for St Petersburg (1862), Pekin (1863), Moscow (1863), Zurich (1864), Berlin (1865), Rome (1865) and New York (1868). The set (as advertised within) was intended to have 12 volumes, but only the above reached publication. The promised 'spectacles' of the city of Boston include: the Franklin Statue, the Old State House, a Ride in the Car, Park Street Church, the Nautical School, Harvard College, Mercantile Library, The Public Library and Museum, the Athenaeum and many more. The information and lore about the city is contained within a fictional frame narrative. 

Stock Code: 204937