287

Theodore Roosevelt.

In Memory of My Darling Wife Alice Hathaway Roosevelt and of My Beloved Mother Martha Bulloch Roosevelt.

[New York: Press of G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1884]
45 pages. 8vo, contemporary soft calf with silk-covered endpapers, minimal wear; rehinged, tinting on fore-edges a bit worn, internally clean. In a modern ¼ morocco folding case with label stating "Samuel M. Roosevelt's Copy." 

Roosevelt's mother and young wife both died in his home on the same day, 14 February 1884, just two days after the birth of his daughter. Typhoid fever took his mother, and Bright's Disease caused his wife's death. Roosevelt published this memoriam, featuring his tributes to both women, the funeral service by the Reverend John Hall, the resolutions offered in the New York State Assembly, and the newspaper coverage of the funeral. Roosevelt's tribute to his late wife is short but touching: "We spent three years of happiness such as rarely comes to man or woman. . . . She was beautiful in face and form, and lovelier still in spirit. . . . and when my heart's dearest died, the light went from my life forever." 

The memoriam apparently had a very small print run. It is now probably the greatest printed Roosevelt rarity. One in OCLC (in the Roosevelt Collection at Harvard University's Houghton Library), and only two others known at auction. Cordingley, Extreme Rarities in the Published Works of Theodore Roosevelt, page 26-28; Gregory A. Wynn, "In Memory of My Darling Wife: Theodore Roosevelt's Rarest Publication," in the Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal XXXII:3 (Summer 2011).

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