Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1869.
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Hardcover. Scarce early printing; first published in 1868. 12mo. 282pp. Four plates. Publisher's brick red cloth with gilt title and baseball decorations on the spine. A little foxing on tissue guard and frontispiece, but a bright and clean, very near fine copy. Although Shannon refers to this as "the first known novel incorporating baseball activity" (p.39), we have handled one earlier (Alfred Oldfellow's *Uncle Nat; or, The Good Time Which George and Frank Had, Trapping, Fishing, Camping Out, etc.*, 1865). Thus this is the second novel to feature a substantial amount of baseball activity (two-and-a-half chapters, with an extended description of a schoolboy game), and the first to feature an obvious reference to the game in the title. The author, son of the famous orator Edward Everett and cousin of the author Edward Everett Hale, also served in Congress. A very nice copy.
Item #386161
