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NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE — THE OLD MANSE
Riverside Press, 1904
Designed by Bruce Rogers
Original Glassine Wrapper & Publisher’s Slipcase
Numerous Leaves Unopened
HAWTHORNE, Nathaniel. The Old Manse. Boston: The Riverside Press, 1904.
A beautifully preserved example of this finely printed Riverside Press edition, designed by Bruce Rogers, one of the defining figures in American book design and private-press typography of the early twentieth century.
The volume exemplifies the qualities for which Rogers became celebrated: disciplined typography, carefully judged proportions, generous use of white space, and an understated classical elegance. Rather than relying on elaborate decoration, Rogers allowed the relationship between type, paper, margins, and text to create the visual effect, an approach that became central to the development of modern American fine printing.
Hawthorne’s The Old Manse is especially well suited to this treatment. First published as the introductory essay to Mosses from an Old Manse, it is Hawthorne’s meditation on the historic Concord house in which he and Sophia Hawthorne lived during the 1840s. The essay moves characteristically between autobiography, literary reflection, landscape writing, and the intellectual atmosphere of Transcendentalist Concord.
The present copy is particularly desirable for the survival of its original glassine wrapper and publisher’s slipcase, ephemeral components frequently lost or damaged through handling. Numerous leaves also remain unopened, strongly suggesting that the book has seen very little use since publication.
The preservation of book, glassine, and slipcase together gives the volume unusual completeness as an example of Riverside Press production and makes it especially appealing to collectors of Bruce Rogers, American fine printing, book design, and Hawthorne.
Condition: Near Fine. The book itself remains clean, crisp, and highly attractive in its original cloth-backed boards. Numerous leaves remain unopened. The original glassine wrapper is present, a fragile and increasingly uncommon survival. The publisher’s slipcase is Very Good, with expected light wear but remaining sound and protective.
A particularly attractive survival of an early twentieth-century Riverside Press production, combining Nathaniel Hawthorne, Bruce Rogers design, original glassine, original slipcase, and unopened leaves in unusually complete condition.
