Description
First edition of The Naval War of 1812 by Theodore Roosevelt.
Octavo, xviii, 498pp, [2pp ads]. Publisher’s reddish-brown cloth, title in gilt on spine. Illustration of a fully rigged sailing vessel on cover. Cloth binding variant C. This is an ex-library copy, with location number removed from spine, library bookplate on front pastedown endpaper. Faint library stamp to title page and illustrations. Rubbing to cloth at the spine, rubbing to corners. Scattered foxing throughout, limited impact to text. Brown endpapers, solid text block.
(Cole & Vail, A3a) (Howes R431) A presentable example of the true first edition of the first published work by Theodore Roosevelt.
Roosevelt began writing this book during his senior year at Harvard. He later noted that the first chapters he wrote at Harvard “…were so dry that they would have made a dictionary seem light reading by comparison.” Over the next two years, he refined this narrative and published the book at the age of 23. This first edition was issued in three types of cloth: dark blue, olive green and reddish-brown. Subsequent editions were printed using the same plates, but with “second edition, third edition, etc.” added to the title page.
