Apr 16, 2019 - Sale 2505

Sale 2505 - Lot 79

Unsold
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500
FIRST MAGAZINE PRINTING OF THE CONSTITUTION? (CONSTITUTION.) Columbian Magazine, or Monthly Miscellany . . . of the Year 1787. 9 plates, engraved collective title for Volume I, 8 folding tables. [2], iv, 205-300, 513-884, [6] pages. 8vo, later calf, needs binding (or disbinding); lacking leaves from end of July issue, most folding tables generally repaired or defective, lacking some plates such as September's folding frontispiece plate of Virginia's Natural Bridge; early owner's inscriptions and embossed stamp on verso of frontispiece. Philadelphia, January-February, July-December 1787

Additional Details

The September issue includes the full text of the Constitution as passed by the Convention on 17 September, along with George Washington's note of the same date transmitting the text to the Continental Congress. It appears on pages 659 through 665 in the "Historical Scraps" section, between anecdotes from antiquity. As it is set in different type from the rest of the issue, we can assume it was inserted at the last moment. With the contemporary American Museum, this was one of the first two magazine printings of the Constitution--priority has not been determined. Also of note in the September issue is a Harvard commencement address by 20-year-old John Quincy Adams in support of the Constitution, which had been delivered that past July. Lomazow 19c.