Description
First edition of the Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant, inscribed by his friend and financial advisor, George W. Childs.
Octavo, [two volumes], 584pp [Vol. I]; 647pp [Vol. 2]. Publisher’s deluxe three-quarter morocco binding, gilt title on spines, raised bands with decorative gilt compartments, marbled leaf edges. Light rubbing to tips of the spines, some wear to gilt along the spine of Volume II, expert coloring to brown morocco spine. Both volumes with frontispiece portrait of Grant with tissue covers. Both volumes are complete, with over 50 illustrations, maps, and fold-out facsimile documents. Housed in a custom brown cloth slipcase. (Eicher 492) (Dornbusch II: 1986)
Inscribed in Volume I: “John T. Spencer / With the best wishes of his friend / G.W. Childs / Christmas 1885.”
Ownership inscription of “John T. Spencer” in Volume II.
An exceptional association copy.
George W. Childs (1829-1894), the influential Philadelphia publisher of the Public Ledger, was one of Ulysses S. Grant’s closest civilian friends and a trusted adviser when Grant was deciding how to publish his memoirs. Knowing that his health was failing, Grant needed to repair his finances before his passing.
For his memoirs, the Century Company offered him a standard 10 percent royalty, but Mark Twain, acting through Charles L. Webster & Co., made a competing offer; either a 20 percent royalty or 70 percent of the net profits. Grant worried that Century’s offer was “all in favor of the publisher, with nothing left for the Author.”
Grant asked Childs to come to New York and judge the offer, and Twain later recalled that Childs’s advice was decisive: “Give the book to Clemens.” He signed with Webster on February 27, 1885, a move that ultimately brought Julia Grant hundreds of thousands of dollars.
