A Lyric of the Morning Land
New York: Partridge and Brittan, 1854. First Edition. 12mo, 256, [2], 5 pages, publisher's original gilt-lettered and decorated purple cloth covered boards. A Lyric of the Morning Land is an early and characteristic work of American Spiritualist literature by Thomas Lake Harris, published in New York by Partridge and Brittan in 1854, one of the important firms associated with nineteenth-century Spiritualist publishing. Cast as visionary religious poetry, the book belongs to the period when Harris was producing works, he presented as inspired or spiritually mediated, combining Christian language, mystical cosmology, Swedenborgian influence, and the era’s fascination with communication between the earthly and spirit worlds. Harris later became a significant and controversial religious figure, poet, preacher, and founder of spiritual communities, but this volume represents his earlier literary and prophetic phase. The work is notable both as poetry and as an artifact of antebellum American metaphysical religion, reflecting the optimism, otherworldly imagination, and reform-minded religious experimentation that surrounded the Spiritualist movement in the 1850s. This copy, bound in original purple cloth, is an appealing example of a scarce early Spiritualist title and would be of interest to collectors of American religious history, Spiritualism, occult and visionary literature, Swedenborgian-influenced thought, utopian movements, and nineteenth-century mystical poetry. Spine sunned, scattered foxing and discoloration throughout, slight rubbing, else in good + condition. Item #367
Price: $100.00