Love Songs of Childhood – Eugene Field – 1905 | Fine Binding with Field Provenance

This finely bound edition of Eugene Field’s Love Songs of Childhood by was published by Lakeside Press in 1905 as part of a limited printing of 500 copies. Field’s delightful and enchanting verses for young readers capture the magic and wonder of adolescence, earning him the moniker the Poet of Childhood. This edition reproduces Field’s original manuscripts in a facsimile of the poet’s handwriting, each poem printed on Japan vellum. Several of the poems also include the facsimile signatures and portraits of the people to whom they are dedicated, alongside a preface by Roswell Field, Eugene’s brother. Most notably, this copy is inscribed by Field’s widow, Julia Sutherland Field, and their five surviving children. As stated in this inscription, Love Songs of Childhood is considered to be Field’s most personal work, including such beloved poems as The Rock-A-By Lady and When I Was A Boy.

Interestingly, this edition also bears a binding stamp from Sickles, in reference to the Sickles bindery in Chicago. One of Field’s children, Eugene Field II, collaborated with the proprietor, Harry Dayton Sickles, to produce a series of signature forgeries in the 1920s, including those of Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and most famously, the Abraham Lincoln Coachman Forgeries. While this book and the Field family signatures in it are not forgeries, even this custom binding borrowed stylistic inspiration from Lorenz Schwartz, an American bookbinder known for his fine, decorative bindings.

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Love Songs of Childhood
• Author: Eugene Field
• Contributor: Roswell Field (preface)
• Publisher: Chicago, Lakeside Press
• Edition: Limited Edition, 1905
  • Of 500 copies on Imperial Japan vellum
• Binding: Decorative maroon Moroccan leather with gilt monogram
• Format: Octavo (8vo), single volume
• Size: ~ 9.25in × 7in (23.5cm × 18cm)
• Collation: Unpaginated; only printed on recto
• Illustrations: Several in-text photographs throughout
• Contents Include:
  • The Rock-A-By Lady
  • The Duel
  • Jest ‘fore Christmas
  • Fiddle-Dee-Dee
  • When I Was A Boy
• Provenance: Handwritten Inscription “We, the wife and children of Eugene Field, are proud of inscribe this, his most intimate work.” Julia Sutherland Field; Mary F. F. Englar; Eugene Field II; Frederick S. Field; Roswell F. Field; Ruth Field Foster. Christmas Day, Nineteen-Eighteen. Also includes gilt monogram supralibros on front board of “GEB or CEB”

Condition:

Near Fine condition. Binding is secure without major flaws, with a richly gilt spine and very slight rubbing at the corners. The leather is smooth, though the back board has been sunned. Satin endpapers are clean and intact. The hinges and text block is secure, with pages free of marks and foxing. An exceptional copy in a custom binding.

Why Collect This?

• Limited to 500 copies on Japanese vellum
• Signed by the widow and children of Eugene Field
• Beautiful Moroccan leather binding
• Includes many of Field’s most famous poems in facsimile handwriting

Item Number: #31186