Hand-annotated book from Garfield's personal library: Lost Abroad by George Alfred Townsend. Hartford, CT: S. M. Betts and Company, 1870. Hardcover, 6 x 7.5, 594 pages. Inscribed to Garfield by the author on a free end page in ink, "General Garfield, a good Congressman, from a reporter of things, Geo. Alfred Townsend." Also annotated in pencil by Garfield on the title page with some lines of verse, "With awkward senses furloughed & head bowed / I followed some fine instinct in my feet / Cathedral p 21 / See Lowell's 'Cathedral'" (these lines appear at the top of page 21 in James Russell Lowell's 'The Cathedral,' published by Fields, Osgood & Co. in 1870). Congressman Garfield also pencils some commentary in the margin of page 25 ("An ignorant contractor like Oates doesn't philosophize in this way") and underlines a few words throughout the book. Garfield's personal bookplate, "Inter Folia Fructus, Library of James A. Garfield," is affixed to the front pastedown. Autographic condition: very good, with overall foxing to the title page. Book condition: VG-/None, with edgewear, foxing to textblock, a cocked spine, loose boards and cracked hinges.
