The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson: By One of the Firm

New York: Harper & Brothers, Undated [1866]. First Edition, later impression. Wrappers. Very good. TEMPORARILY DISCOUNTED. WAS $4,250. NOW $1,850. A RARE SURVIVING copy of this VARIANT, LATER, BUT EARLY, IMPRESSION, OF THE RARE FIRST AMERICAN EDITION, in the Publisher's original wrappers housing the FIRST EDITION STATE (perhaps, and we think likely, first printing) OF THE TEXT LEAVES of this Anthony Trollope novel first published in the United States on May 6, 1862 and not published in the UK until November, 1870, making this American Edition the TRUE FIRST EDITION OF THIS TROLLOPE NOVEL. The tale centers on a Partnership in a haberdashery amoung Brown (a retired Butter dealer), Jones (Brown's son-in-law), and Robinson (a strong advocate of advertising and an aspirant to the hand of Brown's youngest daughter, Maryanne). Due to Brown's timidity, Jones's embezzlement, and Robinson's extravagance, the Firm went bankrupt. This wrappered copy has been bound in brown half-cloth and marbled boards which (like the original wrappers) lack the spine. The front board's recto has a pasted-on title label whereon the novel's title is written and its verso bears a Muncie, Indiana Public Library label with the Library information written thereon. The volume contains its original front and rear wrappers and all of the required leaves. The front wrapper's recto shows "D 92" in pencil as well as a bit of loss to its left portion which losses are now adhered to the front board verso's adjacent margin. The front wrapper's verso shows evidence of a removed label of some sort with evidence of its location and size shown by a darkened area within which some remnants of the label remain. Within, the front free endpaper is torn and a portion of it remains with the front wrapper's verso as shown in the images provided with our proprietary listing. The pages remain in reasonably nice condition with some darkening throughout, varied foxing and scattered spotting, and only slight edge wear and tiny tears to the edge of a some of them. There is minor tearing and some additional margin tearing with loss to the outer margin of the leaf hosting pp 57/58. Copies of this FIRST EDITION text of any variant or issue are EXCEEDINGLY SCARCE TO RARE and are, in consequence, ABSOLUTELY RARE TO THE MARKET. In his Bibliography of Trollope's works published in 1928 (which focused on Trollope's UK editions), Sadleir states with respect to this novel's first American edition: "It is impossible for a collector to ignore Harper's unauthorized edition of Brown, Jones and Robinson, so greatly did it predate the English version." While Sadleir gave some information on the US edition, he further stated: "The above description is necessarily incomplete and, in some places, problematical. I have myself never seen a copy of this pirated - but by eight years 'first book' - edition of Trollope's unhappy excursion into humour. America friends have contributed details of collation, but even they have failed to discover a copy in original shape. Wherefore the allocation of pages, the binding and illustration details have to be surmised." [Sadlier speculated in his attempt at a collation that the American edition probably had a frontispiece, but that speculation turned out to be wrong.] In his Bibliography's Addenda and Corrigenda, published in 1934, Sadlier stated: "A copy in fine untouched state has now been discovered which makes possible the following corrected collation: ...." [which Sadlier then gives]. In his excellent Bibliography of Trollope's works published in the United States, Walter Smith notes that the 1862 copy he shows and describes is the "...actual first edition and the first of several works to appear in America before their publication in England. [He further notes, as did Sadlier, that the story was first published in serial form in the Cornhill Magazine from August 1861 - March, 1862 and was not published in novel form in England until 1870.] Smith goes on to state that: "One copy examined (Parrish Collection, Princeton, AT 355) had a title page dated 1875; its front cover was undated and listed the price at 50 cents; the back cover was dated APRIL 1873." [Smith names the copy at Princeton as "AT 354".] He also notes a copy in the Beinecke Library at Yale University (IpT1749862K) as well as another in the Butler Library at Columbia University and that the copies at both Butler and Columbia have the four pages of advertisements bound in at the end. He further notes that: "Brussel describes the Parrish copy, which advertises New Novels on p. (5) in his book and reproduces a photograph of its front cover (151). The Butler copy has Carroll A. Wilson's bookplate affixed to the inside front cover." Smith also notes that the Huntington Library (433234) has a rebound copy of the novel with a Library label to its title page. [Smith does not mention whether the wrappers are included or not.] These four copies, one of which has been rebound, are the only copies he mentions. In his work regarding his own collection titled "Thirteen Author Collections of the Nineteenth Century and Five Centuries of Familiar Quotations" [1950], the great collector Carroll A. Wilson, in discussing this Trollope novel, describes the novel as follows: "One of the outstanding Trollope rarities; I know of three other copies in wrappers. Eight years before the English first edition. This was No. 220 of Harper's Library of Select Novels. With a preliminary leaf and two terminal leaves listing the publications in the series, ending at 220." PLEASE NOTE: The present copy of the work is as shown in the images provided at our Allington Antiquarian Books site found at: www. allington books .com -- without the spaces. These images of our copy show it to be "No. 220" in Harper's Library of Select Novels priced at "50" Cents with the rear wrapper being dated "May 1, 1866", making it a bit later than the original 1862 true first edition, first printing, first issue. The Parrish copy cited above also shows the price of 50 cents. The present copy shows no advertisement pages either to the front or rear. We put this copy as being later than the true first 1862 first edition, first issue, first state, but earlier than the Parrish copy at Princeton (which is certainly later as it shows an undated front cover -- as does our copy -- but a later dating (APRIL, 1873) to the back cover. IN SUM: In our nearly five-decade search for Trollope rarities we have seen only one other copy, bringing the total number of copies of the first edition copies known to us to five. We were blessed to own that copy (which fully matched Smith's collation) and were able to sell that copy for a quite quickly to a major collector for a quite tidy sum. We offer this variant copy, ITSELF QUITE RARE FOR A LOWER AMOUNT. A RARE COPY WHICH MOST COLLECTORS WILL NEVER SEE, MUCH LESS HAVE AN OPPORTUNITY TO PURCHASE THIS EXCEEDING DIFFICULT - TO - FIND RARE TROLLOPE FIRST EDITION and no collection is complete without it.