1871 First Edition—William Cullen Bryant’s The Song of the Sower—42 Wood For Sale

Issued as an elegant Victorian gift book, this separately published edition combines Bryant’s celebrated pastoral poem with an extensive series of finely executed illustrations. Contributing artists included Winslow Homer, Harry Fenn, William John Hennessy, Victor Nehlig, Casimir Clayton Griswold, and others, with the designs translated into wood engraving by W. J. Linton and several notable contemporary engravers.

The volume remains in its striking original green publisher’s cloth. The front cover is richly ornamented in gilt and black with sheaves of grain, grasses, flowers, and wheat surrounding the gilt title—an especially appropriate binding for Bryant’s meditation upon sowing, agricultural labor, nature, and the harvest.

The poem begins:

“The maples redden in the sun;
In autumn gold the beeches stand;
Rest, faithful plough, thy work is done
Upon the teeming land.”

Bryant was one of nineteenth-century America’s leading poets and the longtime editor of the New-York Evening Post. The inclusion of work by Winslow Homer, one of America’s most important artists, gives the book additional appeal to collectors of American art and illustrated books.

An opening blank contains a handsome full-page manuscript presentation dated “Brooklyn, Nov. 20th, 1875,” addressed to “Miss Mattie…” and incorporating inspirational lines by Adelaide Anne Procter and Philip James Bailey. A later pencil notation reads “W. C. Bryant”; however, the inscription is not represented as being in Bryant’s hand.

Bibliographical details: New York: D. Appleton & Company, 1871. First separate illustrated edition; copyright entered in 1870. Illustrated with 42 wood engravings. Approximately 9 × 7 inches.

Condition: Original green cloth with bright gilt and black decoration. Moderate rubbing and edge wear, with fraying and small losses at the spine ends and wear at the corners. The front inner hinge is cracked and substantially weakened, with partial separation visible. Pages exhibit light toning and occasional minor marks, but the illustrated leaves shown remain clean, sharply printed, and attractive. Contemporary 1875 presentation inscription on the front blank. Sold as an antique volume with the expected evidence of age and use.