Arcana:

Home, Harriette Wilder. NP (Chesapeake, VA?): Harriette Wilder Home, 1908. First Edition. Oblong 8vo. Cloth Over Limp Boards. Travel Album. Near Fine/No Jacket - As Issued. np (48pp), 29 individual 3 ¼ x 5 ½" gelatin silver photographic illustrations. This is a hand assembled  journal that consists of thirty-one pages of holographic script by passenger Harriette Wilder Home documenting a five day cruise on the ship SS Powhatan along the Virginia Coast in mid-July, 1908. Written in a 5 ¾ x 7 ¾" cloth album, The author jauntily details the map coordinates, meals, scenery, bridge-playing results and other pertinent events during her five day cruise. The text is intertwined amidst twenty-four tipped-in photographs taken during the voyage, with an additional five images and a 1908 postcard of a Maryland crabbing fleet laid in. "The Powhatan was originally was launched as the SS Yorktown February 10th, 1894, by Delaware River Iron Ship Building and Engine Works for the Old Dominion Steamship Company. The Navy purchased the Yorktown on April 21st, 1898, to be commissioned as the second USS Resolute, an auxiliary cruiser and transport that saw naval service during the Spanish-American War in 1898-1899. The Department of War acquired the ship on January 22nd, 1900, for service as the Army Transport (USAT) Rawlings. The Rawlings was then decommissioned and sold to the Merchants and Miners Transportation Company of Baltimore, Maryland on July 27, 1901, and renamed Powhatan", which leads us to Ms. Home - who has written "Harriette Wilder Home - / Her Book." in ink on the inside of the front board - and her 1908 Chesapeake Bay pleasure cruise. An age-appropriately most handsome example of this unique travel journal showing a bit of mild wear and occasional creases to the margins of some pages as well as silvering to some of the photographs. Inventory Number: 026940