The Memories of an Old Tar…
Typescript.
About 200 pages, typed on recto only. b/w photographic prints tipped into text.
Price: $1500
English-born Phillips narrates his family’s voyage to America, his life ashore and at sea, and his adventures in the Union Navy during the Civil War. In the manner of a true yarn spinner, Phillips can’t resist a good story as, for example, when he breaks off his account of his gunboat in the James River being shot at by a sniper to narrate anew the story of the “Alabama” and the “Kearsarge.” After the Civil War Phillips worked on several vessels traveling between Boston, South America, and Europe, and recounts many episodes from his time in South America in great detail. Unpublished and of historical value. This is an original typescript, with the author’s corrections, prepared for his daughter Josephine, who lived in Harvard, Mass. Typescript contains a photographic portrait of Phillips and several copy photographs. Bound in limp suede and housed in a fine clamshell box with leather cover and spine labels.