Colonial Living & 19th History Books

Victorian Family Celebrations $9.95
Sarah Ban Breathnach
New York: Simon &Schuster 1990
Here is an opportunity to flesh out your Victorian genealogy with some customs and traditions of that era. This edition is my favorite because of the size of the book, it is out of print
A month by month guide to creating seasonal feasts, traditional crafts, and the little daily rituals that make a house a home.
Table of Contents:
FOREWORD
AT HOME WITH MRS. SHARP
THE VICTORIANS AT HOME
THE ART OF DOMESTIC BLISS
Ceremonials for Common Days
Harmony at Home
Mealtimes
The Children's Hour: Bath and Bedtime Rituals
Family Night
Sundays with the Children
Birthdays
Difficult Days: Crisscross and Convalescence
THE JOY AND COMFORT OF SEASONAL PASTIMES
January: January Joys • Home-Circle Pastimes • Board Games • The Treasures of the Snow • The Seasonal Table
February: Candlemas Day • Lincoln Logs and Cherry Pies: Celebrating Patriotic Holidays with Children • Love's Own Day: A Family Affair
March: Maple-Sugaring-Off Party • St. Patrick's Day • Fairy Wayside Walks • The Children's Garden
April: April Fools' Day • Rainy Day Occupations • Eastertide: March Hares, Painted Eggs, and Hot Cross Buns • The Easter Egg Tree • Easter Nests, Egg Rolls, and Bonnets • Arbor Day • Passover
May: May Day • Memories of a Victorian May Day • Mother's Day • Decoration Day (Memorial Day)
June: Victorian Ice Cream Social • Summer Camp • A Victorian Midsummer Night's Dream • Celebrating Life with Father
July: The Pursuit of Happiness: An Old-Fashioned Independence Day • Traveling with the Children • Christmas in July • At the Seashore
August: Eureka Entertainments • Nature's Novelties • Family Outings • Preserving the Summer
September: Back to School • Labor Day • Grandparents' Day • Autumn's Work • Michaelmas
October: The Costume-Planning Party • The Pumpkin-Carving Party • All Hallows' Eve Home Frolic • Harvest Home
November: All Souls' Day • Martinmas • Thanksgiving • Stir-Up Sunday (The Sunday Before Advent)
December: The Advent of Christmas • Creating an Advent Calendar • St. Nicholas Day • St. Lucia's Day • The Gift of Christmas Past • Single-Parent Traditions for the Holidays • Chanukah • New Year's Eve Good Riddance Party
Bibliography
Permissions
With Thanks and Appreciation
Index
224 pages, 8x10 softbound, good condition, minor edge wear and a few small scratches. 

Speeches in the Second and Third Sessions of the Thirty-Seventh Congress, and in the Vacation. $75.00
Benjamin F. Thomas.
Boston: Printed by John Wilson and Son, 1863.
The speeches and addresses in this volume cover a period of about fifteen months, including the second and third sessions of the Thirty-seventh Congress and the vacation. T have put them in this form to meet the wishes of a few friends, in justice to myself, that my position may not be misunderstood and in the hope, not very buoyant, that they may do good. I am painfully sensible how fragmentary and defective they are. But the principles they seek to illustrate and defend are just and true, and will weather the storm. They constitute the traditional policy of the country, a return to which is, in my judgment, its only security. That they are unpopular at this moment does not disturb me: the more imperative is the duty of standing by and upholding them. The citizen owes to the country, in the hour of her peril, honest counsel, calmly given, but with the love that casteth out fear." Never were freedom of thought and of the lips and pen so necessary as now. They have become, not only the most precious of rights, but the most religious of duties
In preparing for the printer, I have corrected a few of the errors of style. I have not felt at liberty to make material changes in the thought. In one or two instances (as in the remarks on the Conscription Bill), I have added, from notes, suggestions omitted at the time of delivery. The recurrence of the same idea, and of even the same expression, in different speeches on thee same or kindred topics, could not well be avoided.
From the remarks on the Treat case, I have stricken two or three sentences which were thought to breathe a spirit of vengeance; a spirit the gospel does not permit us to indulge, even against the enemies of our country. Of the expressions of confidence in the conservative views of the President, I can only say, I believed them well grounded when they were made.
The Speeches:
The relation of the "seceded states" (so-called) To the Union, and the Confiscation of Property, and Emancipation of Slaves, and Such States
Confiscation
The Treasury Note Bill
Recognition of Liberia and Haiti
Death of Honorable Goldsmiths F. Bailey
Case of the "Trent"
Speech at the Mass Meaning for Recruiting, on Boston Common
The Army of the Reserve
Speech at Chelsea
Remarks on the Border States
On the Bill "to Raise Additional Soldiers for the Service of the Government"
The Louisiana Election Cases
The Conscription Bill
New England and the Union
217 pages, 6 x 10 hardcover; inscribed by author; overall condition is good, cloth split at top of spine, edges bumped, worn, front and rear endpapers mildewed, former owner’s bookplate; text block edges aged, interior clean. <con>

In Small Things Forgotten: The Archeology of Early American Life $4.95
James Deetz
Table of contents:
Recalling Things Forgotten: Archaeology and the American Artifact
The Anglo-American Past
All the Earthenware Plain and Flowered Remember Me as You Pass By
I Would Have the Howse Stronge in Timber
Small Things Remembered
Parting Ways
Small Things Forgotten
184 pages, paperback, good condition, some creasing on covers.

The Vinland Map and the Tartar Relation $19.95
By R A Skelton et al
New Haven, Yale University Press, 1965. 3rd printing.
     I've seen this one go for up to $80.00. Is it real or is it a forgery? They are still arguing about this 40 years after publication.
     (from the end flaps) "Because evidence concerning the Viking discovery of North America in the tenth and eleventh centuries is so incomplete, investigation of this area of history will be substantially aided by the discovery of new documents. Such is the claim made for the previously unknown manuscripts here published for the first time. They are two documents copied about 1440 from much earlier originals, now lost. The first is an account of Friar John of Plano Carpini's mission to the Mongols in 1245-47. The second is a world map, including the western ocean, with delineations of Iceland, Greenland, and a land mass named Vinland which represents the North American mainland as known to the medieval Norsemen.
     This map is the earliest known and indisputable cartographic representation of any part of the Americas.
     Thomas E. Marston, Curator of Medieval and Renaissance Literature in the Yale University Library, describes the chance circumstances of the discovery of the two documents, which had become separated from a manuscript of Vincent de Beauvais into which they had been originally bound. Mr. Marston establishes the close association of the Vinland Map with the "Tartar Relation"-the account of the Mongols. George D. Painter, Assistant Keeper of Printed Books in the British Museum, who has edited the Tartar account, also analyzes the relationship of the three elements of the original Beauvais manuscript and reconstructs its bibliographical history. R. A. Skelton, Superintendent of the Map Room of the British Museum, describes the Vinland Map and its geography in relation to its sources and analyzes its historical importance.
     As the editors show, the Tartar Relation provides information on Mongol history and legend not to be found in any known source, and a portion of the Map represents the only surviving medieval example based on Norse cartography-a conclusion with far-reaching implications for the history of cartography and of the Viking navigations."
289 pages, 12 x 9 hardbound, dj, worn and chipped on edges and corners.