?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 400 - $ 600
EXPLAINING LINE IN HIS "EVANGELINE" LONGFELLOW, HENRY W. Autograph Letter Signed, to "Dear Miss Olmsted," expanding upon a literary allusion [made in first part of 1847 edition of his Evangeline: "Flashed like the plane-tree the Persian adorned with mantles and jewels"]. 2 1/2 pages, 8vo, written on a single folded sheet; minor soiling along center vertical fold, horizontal fold. Cambridge, 8 February 1879
"The Persian spoken of in the poem is Xerxes. Evelyn speaking of the Plane tree says: 'This beautiful and precious tree, anciently sacred to Helena, . . . was so doted on by Xerxes, that . . . [he] stopped his prodigious army of 1,700,000 soldiers . . . to admire the pulchritude and procerity of one of them; and . . . he covered it with gold, gems, necklaces, scarfs, bracelets, and infinite riches.' ". . . [T]his is enough to explain the meaning of the passage."
