Buckingham, J. H. [editor]. The Amaranth, A Literary and Religious Offering, designed as a Christmas and New Year's Present. Newburyport, [Massachusetts]: Charles Whipple, 1831. First Edition. [12442]
Red leather spine with plain yellow paper boards, small chip top of spine, rubbed and scuffed yet with good joints, 6 x 4 inches, tight. Lacks the first and final free end papers (blanks), all page edges gilt, 1844 former owner's signature on the remaining front end paper, small pink "534" stamped above it. Wood engraving of a funeral monument as frontispiece (we think Rev. George Whitefield's), with tissue guard. 180 pp. with some foxing and finger smudges. Good. Hardcover.
J. H. Buckingham was the compiler and printer of this little book. Joseph Huntington Buckingham (1806-1880), a Massachusetts printer and publisher at Newburyport, Salem, Boston, and elsewhere.
"Contains work by American writers only, according to preface. Contributors include Park Benjamin, Thomas M. Clark, Jr., H. F. Gould, Alonzo Lewis, Guy Linden, and George Lunt." Thompson, American Literary Annuals & Gift Books, 1825-1865. (1936), p. 103.
There is a photo of the table of contents in the pictures provided. The contents include Hampton Beach, by George Lunt; Whitefield [an account of the evangelist George Whitefield, pp. 22-45], by Rev. Leonard Withington; On seeing the Deaf, Dumb and Blind Girl, sitting for her Portrait, by Mrs. L. H. Sigourney; The Cloud Ship, by Alonzo Lewis; Jehiel Wigglesworth, by Mrs. L. H. Sigourney; Advice to an Infidel, by Rev. Leonard Withington; On the Celebration of Washington's Birth Day at Rome, by Americans - Feb. 22nd, 1829, by Mrs. L. H. Sigourney; The Prophecy, a Legend of the West [a poem about the ancient mounds in Ohio]; &c.
