The first anthology of American poetry, 1793

[SMITH, Elihu Hubbard (1771-1798), editor.] American Poems, Selected and Original. Vol. I. Litchfield: printed by Collier and Buel, [1793].

The first anthology of American poetry. This copy with contemporary, dated ownership inscription and in original binding. In 1787, Matthew Carey had published a diminutive collection of "chiefly American" poems, but this is the first collection devoted exclusively to American poems—70 of them. The present volume one is all that was published. The publisher notes in this volume that subsequent ones would be produced "in a more elegant manner" than the present. Sadly, however, the editor Elihu Smith died of yellow fever when he was just 27 and no further volumes of American Poems were produced. Smith was a member of the "Hartford Wits" literary circle and contributors to this volume include John Trumbull, William Dunlap, Francis Hopkinson, Philip Freneau, and "Philenia" (Sarah Wentworth Morton). There are original poems by Richard Alsop, Theodore Dwight, William Dunlap, Joseph Howe, and Timothy Dwight. According to Stoddard & Whitesell, this binding is likely to be a publisher's binding. BAL 4976 (Dunlap) and 5046 (Dwight); Evans 25104; Stoddard & Whitesell 448.

Octavo (184 x 120mm). Subscribers list and errata at end; two blanks before text as called for. (Title with old repair and ink doodles, a small hole; scattered minor spotting.) Original sheep, spine gilt with red morocco label (label about half missing, corners worn). Provenance: Henry Porter (ownership signature dated 1794) – Eliza McKinstry (ownership signature) – [her niece?] Eliza Hazen (multiple child's ownership signatures).