Sep 28, 2017 - Sale 2455

Sale 2455 - Lot 56

Price Realized: $ 344
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 400 - $ 600
(BLIND.) [Howe, Samuel Gridley.] [Blind Child's Second Book.] [10], 14-57, [2] leaves of embossed text. Oblong 8vo, contemporary 1/2 calf, moderate wear; lacking free endpapers and the first 3 leaves, shaken, hinges split, minor wear. [Boston: New England Institution for the Education of the Blind, 1836]

Additional Details

A book printed in raised Boston Line Type, a precursor to Braille which used the modified shapes of actual letters. The book contains the Ten Commandments and a series of lessons, concluding with a description of the solar system illustrated by two full-page diagrams. Inscribed with the name of William Hatch (1833-after 1875), very likely the young man from Bristol, RI who was sent at state expense to the Perkins Institution for the Blind in 1845 and remained there for several years. The school report boasted that "books in raised letters for the blind can be procured there." (Report of the Commissioner of Public Schools of the State of Rhode Island, January 1854, page 4). OCLC lists only 4 surviving copies, only one of them apparently complete; the Perkins School for the Blind has images of an apparently complete copy on line.