1854 - Handbook of Newport - REV D.S. Kurtz - Very Rare For Sale

"Dix, John Ross [i.e. George Spencer Phillips] A HAND-BOOK OF NEWPORT, AND RHODE ISLAND BY THE AUTHOR OF "PEN AND INK SKETCHES" ... Newport: C. E. Hammett, Jr, 1852. First edition, 12mo, pp. xii, [1], 14-170, [2], [12] ads for Newport businesses; wood-engraved frontispiece (in the pagination), 5 wood-engravings in the text (3 full-page); original blue blindstamped cloth lettered in gilt on upper cover; lightly rubbed, a few small spots on cover; all else very good. With the early ownership signature on the front free endpaper and title page of Richard Stebbins, Newport 1853-4. "George Spencer Phillips, who was known in Newport only as John Ross Dix, was from Bristol, England and was connected for a time with one of the leading New York papers. He came to Newport as the friend and guest of Rev. John O. Choules, and while here he wrote his Handbook of Newport, bringing it to the publisher with an offer to dispose of the manuscript at a certain price with the privilege of a day or two for examination. He returned within an hour demanding an immediate purchase at a very great reduction from his first offer, with the alternative of its acceptance, or destruction of the manuscript. His proposal was accepted and the book sent to New York and published in about a week. It proved a very good venture, the whole edition selling in a short time. It has long been out of print" (Hammett). Bartlett, p. 111; Hammett, p. 54.”