Ballou's Pictorial Drawing-Room Companion,June 20, 1857. Boat Race on the Charles River; Edwin Booth; Poodle Training; Persian Horses; Sunshine; The Whaleship and the Cannibals; Parisian Theaters; Ancient Warfare; Old Italian Violin Makers; Battle of Albu

Boston: M.M. Ballou, 1857. First Edition. TheJune 20, 1857 issue, Volume XII, No.25, Whole No. 313. Numerous illustrations from engravings. Elephant folio size, sewn newsprint wraps, 16 pp. Very Good; closed tear at front cover (scan), small peripheral chipping, light toning, a few spots of foxing. See scans. A sturdy and handsome example. Maturin Ballou's paper was quite supple, not at all fragile, and it shows. Sharp, healthy, well-preserved. This issue contains stories, articles, and / or the diverse and now somewhat legendary engravings - here, regarding: cover article, Boat Race on the Charles River; Madame de Solange, short fiction by Anne T. Wilbur; poodle training, with engraving; Feats of Persian Horses; Sunshine; The Whaleship and the Cannibals; Parisian Theaters; Ancient Warfare, with engraving; Old Italian Violin Makers; Battle of Albuera; Wood Gas; The Two Captains: Or, The Sailors' Protege (Ralph Tryon); Witchcraft in Mississippi; Prince Halem Pacha's Sporting Steam Yacht, with engraving; The Boston Sardinian Cannon, with engraving; The Nashua, NH Niagara Engine Co. No. 5, with an engraving of Chief Engineer F. Munroe, and another of the Company in action; Sophie's Confession (Margaret Verne); The Alligator and the Tiger (Frederick W. Saunders); short bio on Edwin Booth, with portrait engraving; Egyptian Shadoof for Irrigation, with engraving; Blanchard's Timber-Bending Machine, with engraving; The Siamese; a haunted chamber; South Africa, with two engravings; as well as of course a number of short editorials, news pieces, poems, and ads. Please see all scans. Maturin Ballou's 16-page newsprint periodical was already a piece of American history when he, as managing editor of Gleason's Pictorial, bought that - the first successful illustrated weekly newspaper in America - from owner Frederick Gleason in 1855. LLng3