The History of John the Orange-Man.
Boston: C. M. A. Twitchell & Co., 1892. First edition. Original printed red wrappers (6.63 x 4.88 inches), 52 pages. Frontis portrait, two plates. A trifle soiled and worn; a very good copy. Item #22490
A lively biographical sketch of the personable and moderately eccentric Irish fruit peddler John Lovett of Cambridge, a longtime beloved mascot of Harvard who ostensibly made his living selling oranges and notions on campus but may well have also bootlegged for undergraduates. (Harvard Alum and television gardener Michael Weishan makes a compelling case for the latter hypothesis.) Lovett had made cameos on Broadway (playing himself in Brown of Harvard) and his death in 1906 merited a column in the New York Times. With a pencil ownership signature of contemporary Harvard undergraduate W. H. Peabody Jr. at the head of the front wrapper.
Price: $150.00