[CHILD, Lydia Maria Francis (1802-1880).] Hobomok, a Tale of Early Times. By an American. Boston: Cummings, Hilliard, & Co., 1824.

First edition of the author and abolitionist's rare first book, with RBH recording only two other copies in the past 100 years. Lydia Maria Francis was one of six children born to a prosperous baker in Medford, Massachusetts. Her literary career began early: she founded the first American children's magazine, Juvenile Miscellany, and wrote two successful novels before the age of 25. Her first was Hobomok, a historical romance set in colonial New England based on the marriage of a white woman, Mary Conant, and a Native American, the eponymous Hobomok. Its publication earned her membership to the distinguished Boston Athenaeum, and while it sold poorly at first, it would be celebrated by prominent Bostonians. Despite her work as a suffragist and abolitionist, she is perhaps best-remembered for penning the poem known as "Over the River and Through the Wood" (originally written with the line "to Grandfather's house we go," though most people sing "Grandmother's"). With page 146 mispaged 14. BAL 3087; Emerging Voices 36; Sabin 12718; Wright 520.

12mo (170 x 104mm). 19th-century calf (rebacked with fragments of original spine laid down, chipping and wear to covers).