1860 Presidential Campaign, Portraits and Sketches of the Lives of all the Candidates for the Presidency and Vice-Presidency for 1860…

Description

This slim volume, 1860 Presidential Campaign, Portraits and Sketches of the Lives of all the Candidates for the Presidency and Vice-Presidency for 1860…contains the platforms and engravings of all the candidates. 

Perhaps the most beautiful of all the 1860 campaign biographies, it remains excessively scarce.  John Chester Buttre (1821 – 1893) was not only a publisher but also an excellent engraver, printing any number of excellent Civil War era engravings and lithographs, many hand-colored. 

The engravings accompanying the various candidate’s biographical sketches are of excellent quality, with that of Lincoln leading off. Buttre engraved the portraits for the Wide-Awake Edition (Wesson 8, Campaign Lives of Abraham Lincoln, 1860) and yet another set of plates for Follett, Foster & Co. for Howells’ life of Lincoln. 

Wesson notes that Buttre “had the “effrontery” to advertise this book on June 8, 1860 “being on…news-stands,” although a few of the candidates had not as yet been nominated.  Many of the advertisements are for Lincoln-related images or publications.  Excellent, the best we’ve handled; as usual, the engraved images offset themselves on the opposite page. 

(Lincoln 1860 Presidential Campaign) PORTRAITS AND SKETCHES OF THE LIVES OF ALL THE CANDIDATES FOR THE PRESIDENCY AND VICE-PRESIDENCY, FOR 1860.  COMPRISING EIGHT PORTRAITS ENGRAVED ON STEEL, FACTS IN THE LIFE OF EACH, THE FOUR PLATFORMS, THE CINCINNATI PLATFORM, AND THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES.  N.Y.:  J. C. Buttre, late July 1860.   8vo.; 32p + 4p. of advertisements; buff printed wrappers; all tissue guards intact.  Bound in later ¾-cloth boards (for protection) and early marbled boards; leather spine label.