Dark Harbor Deluxe
Living in a community with a long history as a summer retreat for what we now categorize as the 1%, Islesboro has often gotten some pretty good press -- and attracted some very interesting characters. Scouting in Western Maine this past week I ran across three real beauties. The first item is a wonderful article written by Margaret Todd Hatch, the mother of a friend, and published in the August 1963 issue of Down East Magazine. It is an article I wasn't aware of, titled, "Islesboro's Nabobs and Neighbors," the article chronicles the past and present of this breathtaking island. The wonderful thing for me is that I see a number of friends in their suntanned youth who are now in their 80s. Throw in Adlai Stevenson, Ambassador William Aldrich, Link Fairfield, and Amasa Williams and you've got quite a snapshot of Islesboro's past and what the present was like in 1963. Charles Dana Gibson, the famous illustrator spent summers here for decades -- actually on Seven Hundred Acre Island just to the east. Well-connected to the New York society crowd that he also lampooned, Gibson's family continues to visit the island in the summers. So, finding one of his large format limited edition folios is always a fabulous surprise, even more exciting that this one is signed! I've sold many copies of Fairfax Downey's 1933 biography of Gibson and his work. They are hard to come by in a surviving dust jacket, let alone signed by Downey as well. Score number three!
To purchase or view additional photographs of any of these items, just click on the image below. Summer is just around the corner... ~Craig | |  | Downey, Fairfax.
Portrait of an Era As Drawn By C. D. Gibson: A Biography.
New York, NY: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1936.
Hard Cover. First Edition. First Printing. xxii, 391 pp. 8vo. Minimal wear to dust jacket, light soiling, spine color very sharp (oftentimes faded from sunning), tiny price clip, now in mylar cover. Clean and crisp within, no markings.
Inscribed in light verse by the author on the half-title page to Gilman Low, who may have been the same Gilman Low who was a strongman and ardent follower of vegetarianism. (#17248)
Price: $200.00 |  | | | Gibson, Charles Dana.
Sketches and Cartoons.
New York: R. H. Russell, 1898.
Hard Cover. First Edition. Unpag. Oblong Folio. Cover has some smudging and soiling, but overall quite tight with original blank paper dust jacket. Very clean within. A beautiful production!
Limited to an edition of 250 copies, this is #200 copies and is signed by both the publisher, R. H. Russell, and the illustrator, Charles Dana Gibson on the limitation plate on the front pastedown. (#14757)
Price: $525.00 |  | | | |
