A corrected manuscript from The Life of Washington - photo 1

A corrected manuscript from The Life of Washington

Lot 16
15.06.2023 10:00UTC -05:00
Classic
Starting price
$ 10 000
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUSA, New York
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ID 967666
Lot 16 | A corrected manuscript from The Life of Washington
Estimate value
$ 10 000 – 15 000
A corrected manuscript from The Life of Washington

Washington Irving. ca. 1859

IRVING, Washington (1783-1859). Autograph manuscript of a large portion of Chapter 16 of the fifth volume of his Life of Washington, n.p., ca. 1859.



19 pages, various sizes but most 200 x 130mm, each page neatly laid into larger sheets of an album together with the printed text to chapter 26 of the published work and two engraved portraits of Irving (contemporary ink smudges, occasional dustsoiling). Red morocco boards.



A lengthy, corrected autograph manuscript for Washington Irving's The Life of Washington with numerous emendations in his hand. Chapter 16 of the final volume of his monumental biography narrates the growing schism between Secretary of State Jefferson and Secretary of the Treasury Hamilton, much to the consternation of President Washington who was considering standing for re-election for his second term. The chapter manuscript opens with Washington reading Jefferson's letter accusing Hamilton and his followers of using the new Constitution "'only as a step to an English Constitution….'" and concludes with Washington's attempts at reconciliation, hoping that "'there may be mutual forbearance and temporizing yielding on all sides. without these I do not see how the reins of government are to be managed, or how the Union of the States can be much longer preserved." Irving's biography of Washington was his final literary effort before his death in 1859. He is credited with humanizing Washington in his account—a marked departure from the previous accounts of his life which tended to present Washington as a demigod. The historian George Bancroft, upon receiving one of the previous volumes, remarked to Irving that his "[c]andor, good judgment that knows no bias, the felicity of selection, these are yours in common with the best historians," and adding that "[t]he style, too, is masterly, clear, easy and graceful; picturesque without mannerism, and ornamented without losing simplicity" (GB to WI, 30 May 1855, quoted from Life and Letters, 3:296-297).

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