LONGFELLOW EXCELSIOR 1878 VICTORIAN GIFT BOOK DECOR FINE BINDING POETRY

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LONGFELLOW EXCELSIOR 1878 VICTORIAN GIFT BOOK DECOR FINE BINDING POETRY :
$76.00

1878 EXCELSIOR HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW VICTORIAN GIFT BOOK DECOR FINE BINDING
Offered here is Excelsior, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. With Illustrations. Published in Boston by James R. Osgood and Company in 1878.
Condition: Very Good Plus. The blue is a darker shade than the camera wanted to show. Beveled edges, all page edges sparkling gilt, decorative stamping on front board and spine. Covers show very minimal signs of wear for age. Inside, clean and tight. Period chocolate brown endpapers are whole with no splitting over the seams. Small inscription in pencil on top of front flyleaf. 15 engravings after Winslow Homer, Thomas Moran et al. 7 3/4\" x 6\" with approximately 20 pages.
\"Excelsior\" is a short poem written in 1841 by American poetHenry Wadsworth Longfellow. The poem describes a young man passing through a mountain village. He bears the banner \"Excelsior\" (translated from Latin as \"higher\", also loosely but more widely as \"onward and upward\"), ignoring all warnings, climbing higher until inevitably, \"lifeless, but beautiful\" he is found by the \"faithful hound\" half-buried in the snow, \"still clasping in his hands of ice that banner with the strange device,Excelsior!\"

Longfellow\'s first draft of \"Excelsior\", now in the Harvard University Library, notes that he finished the poem at three o\'clock in the morning on September 28, 1841.[1]The poem came to him as he was trying to sleep. \"Thatvoicekept ringing in my ears\", as he wrote to his friendSamuel Gray Ward, which caused him to get up and write the poem immediately.[2]

\"Excelsior\" was printed inSupplement to the Courant,Connecticut Courant, vol. VII no. 2, January 22, 1842.[3]It was also included in Longfellow\'s collectionBallads and Other Poemsin 1842.[2]

The title ofExcelsiorwas reportedly inspired by thestate seal of New York, which bears the Latin mottoExcelsior. Longfellow had seen it earlier on a scrap ofnewspaper.[4]