This is a rare first edition of Ultima Thule signed by Longfellow in 1880, the first year the book was published. The title page reads "Ultima Thule By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow … Boston, Houghton Mifflin And Company. The Riverside Press, Cambridge. 1880", and it's skinned "J. B. from H. W. L. Sept 7. 1880" on the front free endpaper. The book is a collection of poems, folk songs, and sonnets on various subjects, and it includes a remembrance to Robert Burns, the great Scottish poet. The book has the title and Longfellow's name in gilt on the spines, as well as Houghton Mifflin's logo in gilt at the bottom of the spine, the title appears on the front cover again, along with a gilt image of a ship sailing under the moon in the center of the cover, and the image is probably symbolic of death. Death has always intrigued writers and poets, including Longfellow, because no one knows what happens after a person dies, but the arrival and departure of a person's life, along with the soul, makes it seem like life is sailing along from one world to the next and have made it one of the most recurring themes in poetry and philosophy. The poem "Tide Rises, Tide Falls" is one of those poems that deals with the idea of death, and it's included in this collection called "Ultima Thule", which translates roughly to the ultimate North of the world literally, and death, and oddly enough, Longfellow died two years after this was published. (Thule is the most northerly location mentioned in ancient Greek and Roman literature, and it means a distant unknown region - the extreme limit of travel and discovery.) The book has blank endpapers with the signature of Longfellow in front, a wood-engraved frontis portrait of Longfellow protected by a tissue guard, the title page and copyright page, which is dated 1880, two pages of Contents, the Tide Rises, The Tide Falls on page 47, the book is 61 pages long, and the top edge is gilt. We've tried to find out exactly what day the book was published, because if it was published anywhere close to September 17 of 1880, that would make it a rarity indeed, but have had no luck getting that far, and Longfellow died in1882, only two years after this book was published. The book measures 6 3/4 x 4 1/2 in. wide, the ending is tight and the pages and text are clean, with a small split on the left side of the spine near the top and a small split on the right side of the spine along the bottom, light wear on the crown and heel of the spine and on two leather triangles in the corners of the front covers, and light wear at the tips. We've never seem a signed first edition of Ultima Thule offered online, let alone listed online, and there were only 2000 copies of the first printing ever issued, so we believe this is a unique and rare copy of Longfellow's work. #8 #7022