Parts 1-4 by Theodore S. Fay, 1831
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Detail of One Engraved View |
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Theodore Sedgwick Fay (1807-1898) (author) |
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Book of New York City views. Offered are the first four of eight parts, in paper wraps, as issued. These four parts are illustrated with 16 views of New York City, arranged two per page on eight of the pages. The title page advertises "accurate, characteristic and picturesque drawings, taken from the objects themselves…engraved on steel in the line manner…with historical, topographical, and critical illustrations by Theodore S. Fay, (co-editor of the New-York Mirror,) assisted by several distinguished literary gentlemen." It is dedicated on the title page to Philip Hone, Esq., a successful businessman as well as a mayor of New York, who lived at 235 Broadway, opposite City Hall. Fay's introduction argues that the time has come for the United States to shed its inferiority complex where cultural products are concerned, and to develop its arts and literature out from under the shadow of "older countries." The work comes from the early stage of Fay's career in which he was living in New York, practicing law and writing for the New York Mirror newspaper. James H. Dakin, who went on to become a leading American architect, was then a young architect at the New York firm of Town & Davis. This book was co-published by a New York and a London publisher. Theodore Sedgwick Fay was a diplomat, poet and author who published numerous books on history, geography and biography, as well as schoolbooks and works of fiction, in both English and German. Fay was born in New York and initially followed in the footsteps of his father, a lawyer and essayist -- Fay began practicing law in 1828 and soon thereafter became an editor at the New York Mirror, where he took over the writing of "The Little Genius," a series of light essays begun by his father. After his marriage in 1833, he spent the next three years as a travel writer for the Mirror, and published his first novel, the best-seller Norman Leslie (1835). He held a variety of diplomatic positions in London, Berlin and finally, Switzerland, where he was U.S. minister 1853-1861, retiring in 1861 and spending the remainder of his life in Germany. He lived to be 91, and continued writing into his eighties. James Harrison Dakin was one of America's leading antebellum architects, designing important buildings around the country from 1832 to 1852 and making a significant contribution to the Greek, Gothic, and Egyptian revival movements. Born in New York, he spent the first six years of his architectural career there before moving to New Orleans in 1835, where he and his brother Charles founded the firm Dakin and Dakin. He designed a number of important buildings in Louisiana, including St. Patrick's Church, the State Arsenal, the Medical College of Louisiana, the University of Louisiana in New Orleans, and the Old State Capitol in Baton Rouge. The New Orleans Public Library has a collection of almost 185 architectural drawings by Dakin. Publication information on title page of Part I: "Accurate, characteristic and picturesque drawings, taken from the objects themselves, expressly for this work by J.H. Dakin, Architect, engraved on steel in the line manner by Barnard & Dick; with historical, topographical, and critical illustrations by Theodore S. Fay, (co-editor of the New-York Mirror,) assisted by several distinguished literary gentlemen." Published by Peabody & Co., No. 233, Broadway, (opposite the park.) London: O. Rich, No. 12, Red Lion Square. Mason, Printer, 64, Nassau Street. Part II, containing Four Splendid Views, will be printed in a few weeks. A very few proofs on India paper have been taken: price Six Shillings." Condition: Contents and wraps generally fair to good with the usual light toning, soiling, wear, handling, and foxing. Some wraps with small chipped losses. Wraps weak at spine, some detached from contents. Some pages loose from binding. Should be rebound, perhaps as a set. References: "James Harrison Dakin Collection." New Orleans Public Library. 30 November 2001. http://nutrias.org/~nopl/dakin/dakin.htm (18 September 2006). "Theodore Sedgwick Fay." Strangers to Us All: Lawyers and Poetry. http://www.wvu.edu/~lawfac/jelkins/lp-2001/fay.html (18 September 2006). Waddell, R. "Moving Uptown: Nineteenth-century Views of Manhattan. Section II. New York in the Late 1820s and Early 1830s ." New York Public Library. January 1998. http://www.nypl.org/research/chss/spe/art/print/exhibits/movingup/labelii.htm (18 September 2006). |