This book is titled "Whaleships Of New Bedford", by Clifford Ashley, with sixty plates by Ashley and an Introduction by Franklin D. Roosevelt, future President of the United States. The book was published in Boston and New York by Houghton Mifflin Company in 1929 and is a beautiful limited first edition. The book has a dazzling red binding with gilt lettering on the spine and a gilt whale on the front cover, blank endpapers, the title page and a copyright page dated 1929, which makes this a first edition (the dates on the title page and copyright page match and there are no other printings besides the 1929 date), then a two-page List of Plates, the two-page Introduction by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, followed by sixty black and white pen-and-ink drawings by the author. The limitation page after the title page reads "This edition is limited to one thousand and thirty-five copies of which one thousand are for sale". The book is also protected by a dust jacket and comes in a slipcase with a paste-down pictorial cover of a whale hunt. Ashley wrote "The Yankee Whaler", the book featured in the previous lot, and Ashley (1881- 1947) was an American artist, author, sailor, and expert on knots. He was born in New Bedford and took an interest in art in high school, then went on to art school in Boston. In the summer of 1901, along with friends N.C. Wyeth and Henry J. Peck, he studied under George Noyes in Annisquam, Massachusetts. In the fall, he enrolled at Howard Pyle's school in Wilmington, Delaware. Pyle helped secure commissions for his students, and Ashley's early work included frontispieces for books and illustrations for magazines such as The Delineator, Leslies, McClure's, and Success, so Ashley kept good company and learned from the best. Ashley had a knowledge of sperm whaling due to his upbringing in New Bedford. In 1904 he was commissioned by Harper's Magazine to write and illustrate an article on whaling; the project required him becoming even more familiar with the topic, so he set sail aboard the bark Sunbeam for six weeks, beginning in August of 1904. During the voyage he witnessed the hunting and killing of three whales. When Ashley's article was published, the master of the Sunbeam praised the article, stating, "I think it is the best whale story I ever read ... The illustrations are so true to life that even the Old Barnacles here cannot find fault with them." Ashley was also famous for The Ashley Book of Knots (1944), a large reference manual with directions and illustrations for nearly two thousand knots; these included several knots by Ashley, such as the Ashley stopper knot and Ashley's bend, and he won high praise for the work. The book here is exquisite. It measures 10 7/8 x 8 7/8 in. wide, with a tight binding and exceptionally clean plates and text. The only blemish we could detect was a small corner crease on the lower edge of the last page in the book, and the gilt on the spine and front cover looks bright and fresh. The dust jacket has light wear at the crown and heel of the spine, light tears near the image of Pan along the edge of the spine, and light wear at the tips of the dust jacket; the slipcase has an attractive paste-down cover which was illustrated by Ashley as well, and it is very intact, with light rubbing at the crown and heel of the slipcase, and probably the best book and slipcase we've seen for this scarce title about sperm whaling in New England in the late 18th and early 19th century. #143 #1528