LONGFELLOW

A nice item, in which, writing to a friend in London, Moulton describes, and encloses a holograph copy of, the poem she has written that very day for the following day's New Year's Eve party to celebrate the engagement of Longfellow's youngest daughter Anne Allegra to Joseph Gilbert Thorp Jr. (1852-1931). 4pp, 12mo. Bifolium. Aged, worn and creased, with damage resulting in loss of a couple of words of text, due to tearing of the letter away from mount. The letter covers three pages, the last written lengthwise, and is forty-six lines long.

4pp., 12mo. In good condition, on lightly-aged paper. The second page carries photographic reproductions of the bas-reliefs of Tennyson and Carlyle, in frames. The third page gives details of the twelve portraits (Carlyle, Tennyson, Hawthorne, Longfellow, Dickens, Whittier, Lowell, Thackeray, Bryant, E. A. Poe, Ambriose [sic] Thomas, O. W. Holmes), executed by 'Mr. RALPH BARTLETT GODDARD, the eminent Sculptor', stating that they are available in plaster or bronze, and 'form a most suitable adornment for the walls of a private or public library, schoolroom, or study'.

3pp., 12mo. A fair copy. Very good, on lightly-aged paper. The twenty-eight-line poem is arranged in seven four-line stanzas, with Hillard's firm signature and the date at the end. The poem begins with unintentional, but no less curious, sexual overtones: 'The rod of Aaron, severed long | From its ancestral bowers, | Felt in its veins the sap of youth, | And shone with buds of flowers. | The rigid staff, smoothworn and dry, | In living green was dressed.

On a piece of wove paper, cut into a shape roughly corresponding to a 5 x 8 cm rectangle. Aged, discoloured and worn, with some of the autograph slightly smudged with blotting. The autograph of one of America's greatest poets. In Longfellow's small, tight hand, reads: 'With regards | Henry . W . Longfellow .' Thin slip of paper laid down on the reverse reads 'S. ENGLEFIELD COLLECTION | HENLEY ON THAMES'.