The Wreath. A Selection of Elegant Poems from the Best Authors.

Bookseller Notes

First edition of this compendium of English verse, printed in New York, with a dedication inscription by the American genealogist and historian Frances Manwaring Caulkins (1795-1869).The engraved frontispiece depicts a scene from Goldsmith's 'Deserted Village', which is the first poem in the collection, and which gives a flavour of its general contents. The featured authors, who include Burns, Cowper, Gray, Pope and Thomson, make this obvious school-prize material, and indeed this volume was awarded to one Julia Hazzard 'for proficiency in her studies and uniform propriety of behaviour' by France M. Caulkins in September 1813.Caulkins was a teacher and historian. Born in New London, Connecticut, she taught at various institutions there and in Norwich. During six years in which she was resident in New York City, she became acquainted with the secretaries of the American Tract Society who would go on to publish several of her works intended for a juvenile audience, including The Children of the Bible: As Examples and as Warnings (1842). She was published widely in journals and newspapers, and produced several other books, including Colporteur Songs: Written for the American Messenger (New London, 1859) and various histories of the cities of Norwich and New London. Caulkins was a keen genealogist, an interest which was evidently sparked by her own interesting ancestors. Through her mother she was descended from an ancient Chester family; Sir Ranulphus de Manwaring was Justice of that town in 1189, and a later antecedent was killed in October 1644 during the town's six-month-long siege by Cromwellian forces. On her paternal side she was descended from Hugh Caulkins, a first minister of Plymouth, the first permanent English colony in New England. Early American history was a passion, and her histories remained in print after her death. In 1849, Caulkins became the first female member of the Massachusetts Historical Society, the oldest historical society in the United States.