POEMS - 1849

1849. FIELDS, James T. POEMS. Boston: William D. Ticknor & Company, 1849. First edition of the author's first book of poems. Tipped-in is an autograph letter from Fields to Theodore Tilton. viii, 99pp. 8vo., brown cloth, lettered in gilt to spine, decorative stamping in blind to boards. The first gathering and the initial board are nearly detached; spine is split at the upper board and missing large chips; there is offset to the title-page from a missing enclosure, and one of the closing blanks has been trimmed. This volume, offered as is, has some nice associations which mitigate its poor condition. Tipped-in at the second blank is a letter from Fields, who besides being a poet, was a partner of the publishing firm Ticknor and Fields and editor of the Atlantic Monthly (1861-1871), to Theodore Tilton. Tilton was a New York author and journalist, noted for his editorship of the Independent (1856-71), a Congregationalist journal that attracted wide attention for its championing of such reform movements as anti slavery and woman suffrage. He is also remembered for the scandalous lawsuit brought against Henry Ward Beecher in 1874 for adultery with his wife, which ruined his career. But the content of this letter, dated 7 July 1863, is poetry. Fields writes a brief and warm note to "Friend Tilton" and includes corrections to a type-set copy of Tilton's poem "Wooing and Winning," which Tilton had sent him. Fields makes several changes including a new title, "No and Yes," some of which are incorporated in the poem as it appears in its expanded form, under Fields's suggested title, in The Complete Poetical Works of Theodore Tilton (London, 1897). This copy was presented by Garth Cate, the writer, to Edward Weeks, the long time editor of The Atlantic Monthly (1938-1966). It is inscribed by Cate in pencil on the ffep. Laid-in is a typed and initialed note from Cate explaining that a famous bibliographer once told him "that no mere casual owner or giver of a rare book had any right to use ink when inscribing it," hence his pencil signature in the volume. (Oxford Comp. Am. Lit.).