phillips alfred editor (1 Ergebnisse)

First edition. First edition. Chromolithographed additional title-page, 7 hand colored lithographed plates by Lewis. 282pp (errors in pagination). 12mo. A scarce and lovely gift annual, noted for the inclusion of Benson Lossing's fictional account of the Battle of Bexar, and complete with a dramatic hand colored plate of the Texas Revolution battle. Lossing "commemorated the upcoming tenth anniversary of the Texian Revolution in a fictional story published in the popular and colorful gift book . His hero, a young man named José Hernanda, left his betrothed to help defend Texas against Santa Anna's legions. Playing fast and loose with historical facts, Lossing has his hero survive the battle of the Alamo only to be taken prisoner. As he was being marched away, a rescue party arrives led by his true love, Mary, disguised as a man, apparently a popular theme in mid-nineteenth-century literature. Unfortunately, the hand-colored lithograph of The Fall of Bexar, perhaps also by Lossing, who at the time earned his living as an engraver, is as fictional as the story and cannot be said to picture either San Antonio or the Alamo. The unknown artist shows soldiers scaling the wall of a large castle-like fortress. Although the foreground leads one to think of the Alamo barricades, the image seems to represent a much larger structure or structures-perhaps something inspired by an imaginary European battle scene from the publisher's or Lossing's pictorial inventory" (Tyler). Faxon 209; Thompson p.119-120; Tyler, Texas Lithographs, p. 38 Publisher's red morocco, gilt extra, a.e.g Chromolithographed additional title-page, 7 hand colored lithographed plates by Lewis. 282pp (errors in pagination). 12mo.