PERSONAL REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN

London: Privately printed [by the Chiswick Press] for Beatrice Lowry and Her Friends, Minneapolis, 1910. ONE OF 100 COPIES (according to Howes). 215 x 147 mm. (8 1/2 x 5 7/8"). 31, [1] pp., [1] leaf (colophon). With a foreword by Mrs. Lowry.
PLEASING EMERALD GREEN CRUSHED MOROCCO, GILT IN AN ARTS & CRAFTS STYLE, BY SANGORSKI & SUTCLIFFE (stamp-signed on rear turn-in), upper cover framed by multiple rules, entwined heart and trefoil tooling at corners, gilt lettering accented with floral tool above and below the central panel, which has three dots at each corner, raised bands, spine in gilt-ruled compartments, gilt titling, gilt-ruled turn-ins, pale green endpapers, top edge gilt. In contemporary green cloth drop-front box lined with felt. With a frontispiece portrait of Lowry. Howes L-541. ◆Trivial offsetting to free endleaves from turn-ins, a couple of tiny spots of foxing, otherwise in nearly pristine condition, with no signs of use inside or out.

This is an exceptionally well-preserved copy of a work that was specially compiled, printed, and bound to honor the memory of both the author and the subject. Prominent Minneapolis attorney, businessman, and philanthropist Thomas Lowry (1843-1909) grew up in Illinois, and Lincoln had assisted his father with several legal matters when he was practicing law. Young Lowry attended all of the Lincoln-Douglas debates and became a devoted admirer of the man who would go on to preserve the Union. After a successful career that included establishing the street car system in Minneapolis, Lowry contracted tuberculosis and spent the last four years of his life as an invalid. With excess time on his hands, he began writing down his memories of Lincoln, in a "fragmentary manner," as Mrs. Lowry explains in the preface. After her husband's death, Beatrice Goodrich Lowry (1854-1915) compiled these memories and some Lincoln letters in her husband's effects into the present volume, which she had printed and bound to distribute to her husband's friends. Edmund Brooks, a Minneapolis bookseller who specialized in fine bindings, helped her to arrange for printing by the esteemed Chiswick Press and binding by the one of the most eminent English workshops of the day, Sangorski & Sutcliffe. Francis Sangorski and George Sutcliffe met as boys attending Douglas Cockerell's bookbinding classes at the L. C. C. Central School. Cockerell was so impressed by their skill that he hired Sutcliffe as a finisher and Sangorski as a forwarder. In 1901, Francis and George went into business for themselves, and before long, they had become two of the most renowned English binders of the 20th century. Preserved over the years in its clamshell box, our binding looks virtually the same as it did the day it left the bindery. Copies of this work do appear on the market, but their condition is seldom as good as seen here..