This lot consists of two two books about George Washington that are very revealing. a) The Life Of George Washington; With Curious Anecdotes, Equally Honourable To Himself, And Exemplary To His Young Countrymen … Twenty-ninth Edition greatly improved, Embellished With Eight Engravings. By M. L. Weems, Formerly Rector Of Mount Vernon Parish … Frankford Near Philad. Published By Joseph Allen 1826. With brown boards, a black label with gilt lettering and double gilt-ruled horizontal lines on the spine, blank endpapers, “E. G. E. Boyce” inscribed on a front endpaper, followed by a frontis portrait of G. Washington and the title page, with a date of 1824 on the copyright page and 228 pages of text, and this biography has the famous line uttered by Washington - "I cannot tell a lie.” See Sabin 10486. books about GEroege wasghint The front board is detached and there are only six engravings in the book; we don’t know why, but there are no pages with torn-out engravings, and we’re wondering if the later editions had engravings taken out before the editions were published. The book has the following engravings: the frontis portrait of Washington, the Death of General Braddock, the Battle of Lexington, the Battle of Bunker Hill, the Capture of Major Andre, and the Surrender of Lord Cornwallis. The book measures 7 1/4 x 4 3/8 in. wide, with light loss on the crown, light soiling or browning on some pages, occasional offset, a light horizontal crease on the engraving of Bunker Hill, and paper loss on a blank endpaper at the rear. Still, an early and important history about the life of George Washington, and earlier editions are practically unobtainable. We’ve been very surprised to find out there are only four copies of this biography offered online - a ninth, tenth, and eleventh edition - they all have damage, ranging from water damage to detached boards and tape repairs - and they all start at $400 and up. We were shocked to find that, but we guess that the book is very rare and speaks to the importance of Washington. b) The Mount Vernon Papers. By Edward Everett. New York: D. Appleton And Company, 443 & 445 Broadway. London: 16 Little Britain. M.DCCC.LX. [1860], dated 1860 on the copyright page, which makes this a first edition (there is just a single date on the title page and the dates on the title page and copyright page match, so this is a first edition, per McBride). The book has faded gilt lettering on the spine, gray-green diced boards, yellow endpapers, a three-page Preface, fifteen pages of Contents (with some uncut pages), and 490 pages of text, followed by an Appendix to page 10. Edward Everett (1794 - 1865) was an American politician, educator, pastor, and orator from Massachusetts, as well as the fifteenth governor of Mass, a U.S. Secretary of State, and president of Harvard. He also spoke at Gettysburg before Lincoln gave his famous speech, but Lincoln spoke for two minutes, while Everett spoke for two hours. Everett also traveled the country with his family, giving public speeches, and one cause he took up was the preservation of George Washington's home at Mount Vernon. Over his travels in the mid-1850’s, he spoke about Washington and donated the proceeds from his touring (about $70,000) to the preservation of Mount Vernon, and he refused to deduct his travel expenses. He also agreed to write a weekly column for the New York Ledger in exchange for a $10,000 gift to the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association. These columns were eventually bound and sold as the Mount Vernon Papers. So he wrote the book to honor Washington and to raise money to preserve Washington’s home at Mount Vernon. The book measures 8 x 5 3/8 in. wide, it has a tight binding and clean pages, with light loss at the crown, light fraying on the heel, and light wear at the tips, and if you were living at the time Everett gave his speeches, you probably would have been dedicating some money to the preservation of Washington’s home, Mount Vernon. See A Pocket Guide to the Identification of First Editions, Compiled by Bill McBride, McBride Publisher, 585 Prospect Avenue, West Hartford CT 06105. #1633 #26