The handsome and slightly later binding of the 1868 edition of Longfellow’s The Courtship of Miss Standish and other Poems sold by Sarasota Auctions at $26,000 (£21,560).
It bore an estimate of just $400-600 at the auction on February 12 but sold instead at $26,000 (£21,560) in that Florida sale.
As the cataloguer noted, this finely bound copy boasted a few first issue points but was in fact a later issue of this collection of Longfellow’s poems, headed by one focusing on the early days of the Plymouth colony and the “legendary love triangle between Miles Standish, John Alden, and Priscilla Mullins, set against the backdrop of a fierce war with the native Americans”.
Also part of the lot were letters relating to the slightly later, 1880s binding that this copy subsequently acquired at the Doves Bindery.
