SOCIETY AS I HAVE FOUND IT. Edition de Luxe signed by Ward McAllister and limited to 400 copies.
New York, NY: Cassell Publishing Company, 1890. First Edition. Hardcover. Quarto (4to). Very good- condition. Item #020431
xvi, 467 pages of text. All page edges gilt-covered (a.e.g.). Original gold and silver beveled cloth binding, with the McAllister coat-of-arms stamped in gilt on the front and rear covers. Moderate shelfwear and soiling, with moderate fraying to the extremities; protected in archival Mylar. Number 265 of 400 EDITION DE LUXE copies signed by Ward McAllister on the limitation page. Additionally signed, inscribed and dated by Ward McAllister on a front endpaper "With the compliments of the author [signed] Ward McAllister 16 W 36 New York City 9th March 1891." Illustrated with a frontisportrait of the author, a two-page image of a Newport dinner table, and of the author in flamboyant costume ball dress, as well as 86 pages containing one or more reproductions of various types of actual calling cards, invitations, menus, cards, regrets, etc. The author inscribed endpaper has a small square within the bottom half of the page which is not toned/browned as the rest of the page is, and evidence of removed adhesive on one edge, indicating that an affixed note or something was removed. The text has minor soiling and tiny spots of staining scattered lightly throughout the text. A few pages with tiny tears at the margins. Samuel Ward McAllister (1827-1895) was a popular arbiter of social taste in the Gilded Age of America, widely accepted as the authority to which families could be classified as the cream of New York society (The Four Hundred). First edition.
Price: $4,800.00