Later Lyrics: First book appearance of "The Battle Hymn…"
First Book Appearance of “Battle-Hymn of the Republic”
The Earliest Known Presentation Copy:
Inscribed To Her Uncle
Howe, Julia Ward. Later Lyrics. Boston: J.E. Tilton & Company, 1866.
8vo.; purple cloth, stamped in gilt; spine chipped. In a specially made quarter-morocco slipcase.
First edition. A prepublication family presentation copy, inscribed on the front endpaper to her favorite uncle and surrogate father John Ward: Dear Uncle John from the Author Dec. 19th 1865. This is the earliest known presentation copy of Later Lyrics; three days later Howe inscribed a copy to her close friend Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. BAL 9427.
A wonderful association copy of the cornerstone volume of Howe’s canon: “Battle-Hymn of the Republic” appeared for the first time in book form in Later Lyrics. Composed in November 1861 and published in the Atlantic Monthly the following February, Howe’s song galvanized the divided American imagination just as Uncle Tom’s Cabin had nearly a decade before. Present at a Confederate attack upon unsuspecting Union troops around Washington, Howe and several friends had been forced to join retreating Yankee soldiers. The road jammed with men, animals, and equipment, Howe’s party passed the time singing such popular army songs as “John Brown’s Body.” After a companion suggested that she write new lyrics to the stirring tune, Howe later recalled,
I went to bed that night as usual, and slept, according to my wont, quite soundly. I awoke in the gray of the morning twilight; and as I lay waiting for the dawn, the long lines of the desired poem began to twine themselves in my mind…. I sprang out of bed, and found in the dimness an old stump of a pen [and] … scrawled the verses almost without looking at the paper…. I returned to bed and fell asleep, saying to myself, “I like this better than most things that I have written.”
“Uncle John,” as Julia Ward Howe fondly called the New York stockbroker John Ward, was “full of kindly forethought for his nieces and nephews.” Julia’s daughters later noted that John was not only their mother’s favorite uncle, but her “devoted friend and chief advisor.” After Julia’s father, a wealthy New York banker, passed away in 1839 (her mother had died fifteen years earlier), leaving six dependent children, John “left his own house and came to live with us….” The surrogate parent also administered his brother’s six-million-dollar estate, which included Julia’s trust fund, from which she received three thousand dollars annually, with additional sums as needed. When Julia married Boston philanthropist Samuel Gridley Howe in 1843, the ceremony was held in her “best and kindest” uncle’s parlor.
Perceiving the need to balance his niece’s bookish demeanors, John assumed the role of family pragmatist. Constantly instructing Julia and her sisters in “practical matters,” he even supplied them with materials to make their own clothes (much to the Ward seamstress’s amusement). John’s reaction to their literary accomplishments was undeviating however, said Julia, though “perhaps he grudged a little [of] the extra time which we were accustomed to devote to books and music.” He may have regarded Later Lyrics as he had Julia’s first piece of writing, a scholarly review of Lamartine’s Jocelyn (1836). “Uncle John showed me a newspaper notice of my work, saying, ‘This is my little girl who knows about books, and writes an article and has it printed, but I wish that she knew more about housekeeping,’ –a sentiment,” Julia admitted, “which in after years I had occasion to echo with fervor.”
Despite a long life and prolific career, a paucity of books with Howe inscriptions seem to exist.
(#5386)
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