Desirable first edition book: The Life of George Washington by Jared Sparks. First edition. Boston: Ferdinand Andrews, 1839. Hardcover bound in full brown calf, 6.5 x 9.75, 562 pages. Book condition: VG/None, with moderate foxing to textblock, cracking to spine leather, ownership inscription to first free end page, and the bookplate of Joel Davis Madden, Jr., affixed to front pastedown.
Jared Sparks (1789-1866) was an influential American historian and educator who served as president of Harvard from 1849 to 1853.
Joel Davis Madden, Jr., left Princeton University in 1905 and moved west to make his fortune in the railroad industry. He went on to become an executive with the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, and died suddenly in 1928 at the age of 41. His book collection, offered by his granddaughter, has not been publicly offered or privately sold in a century.
