Author: [Mitchell, Isaac]
Title: A Short Account of the Courtship of Alonzo & Melissa, Setting Forth Their Hardships and Difficulties Caused by the Barbarity of an Unfeeling Father
Description: Plattsburgh, N.Y. Printed for the Proprietor, 1811. Hardcover. Wright II, 1887; BAL 14020. Also published in the same year, in Poughkeepsie, under the title “The Asylum; or Alonzo and Melissa-”; BAL states that the sequence of the two editions Is not known. BAL distinguishes four issues of the Plattsburgh edition; our copy does not appear to correspond entirely to any of them: No author attributions are stamped on the title page, leaves 117/118, 123/124, and 125/126 do not appear to be cancels, and the tailpiece is printed black on white. In the original quarter leather over boards binding, which is badly worn but intact and firm. The front free endpaper is lacking, and the name “Margaret Lathrop” is handstamped once on the top of the title page and twice on the verso of the rear free endpaper - once, oddly, with the misspelling “Althrop”. Below the latter stampings appears her faint signature. The pages show browning and some short marginal tears, but this is a decent copy of what may or may not be the first edition of a very scarce early American novel. 218p. .

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