Description
First edition of The Naval War of 1812 by Theodore Roosevelt.
Octavo, xviii, 498pp, [2pp ads]. Publisher’s dark blue cloth, title in gilt on spine. Illustration of a fully rigged sailing vessel on cover. Cloth binding variant A. Light rubbing to cloth at the spine. Darkening to top edge of text block, light wear to tips of spine. White endpapers, free of marks or notations, solid text block. Faint foxing to title page and at various points within the text block. (Cole & Vail, A3a) (Howes R431)
An exceptional 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.
