DANA, Richard Henry, Jr.

To Cuba and Back. A Vacation Voyage

Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1859. First Edition. First printing. 12mo (19cm). In original black TZ cloth (a variant not mentioned in BAL), stamped in blind on boards, titled in gilt on spine; brown coated endpapers; 16-page publisher's catalogue at rear, dated April 1859; [i]-viii, 288, 16pp. Tight and upright, a sturdy copy, with minor shelf wear, lacking front fly leaf, minor damage to front pastedown from the removal of a bookplate, contemporary pencil annotation to rear free endpaper, and the cloth apparently coated with a clear varnish: Good.

Nineteenth-century travelers in hot climates--such as Cuba, perhaps--sometimes varnished the covers of their books to prevent insect or moisture damage. Robert Louis Stevenson protected his library this way while in Samoa.

Dana, best known for his influential seafaring memoir Two Years Before the Mast, wrote this travel narrative after a trip to Cuba. He describes "Havana, the socioeconomic, political, religious, and cultural life of Cuba, the arduous slave life on a sugar plantation owned by a rich friend, and even a bullfight" (ANB). BAL 4447.

Price: $150.00

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