1824 Life of Israel Potter RARE 1ST EDITION Herman Melville Naval History RI USN for Sale

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1824 Life of Israel Potter RARE 1ST EDITION Herman Melville Naval History RI USN For Sale

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1824 Life of Israel Potter RARE 1ST EDITION Herman Melville Naval History RI USN:
$750.00

[Trumball, Henry] Life and Remarkable Adventures of Israel R. Potter, (A Native of Cranston, Rhode Island,) Who Was A Soldier In The American Revolution..., Providence, Rhode Island: J. Howard for I.R. Potter (1824). 3 + 108 pp. Woodcut frontispiece. FIRST EDITION, Second Issue, printed by J., Howard for the author with textual errors, noted on an errata leaf in the first issue, corrected.
Potter served in the Battle of Bunker Hill, of which he gives an account, and was later captured while serving on the colonial privateer Washington, and was taken to England as a prisoner of war. He escaped from a prison ship, and worked at various jobs in England, finally returning to the United States in 1823, at the age of 79. This work was the primary source for Herman Melville's historical novel about Israel Potter. Bercaw, Melville's Sources, 721. Howes T.371, Sealts, Melville's Reading, 407. Shoemaker 17677.
While the second edition is considered scarce in its own right, the first edition is far more so. An important rarity of American Revolutionary War History.