Caruso

1916 · H8242 — Boston: The Stratford Company 1916. Hardcover. Very Good. First American edition. 8vo red cloth light wear and soil spine faded. Inscribed on the pastedown to Sidney Lanier Jr. from the translator also signed on the flyleaf "Bravo Lista!" by Enrico Caruso and inscribed also very fondly on the half title to Lanier from the translator "With Compliments of the Country Cobbler and Translator dated January 2nd 1917. The recipient Sidney Lanier Jr. was the son of a famous Confederate poet and musician who died in 1881. Sidney ran an interesting camp in Eliot Maine. According to the website Mainmemories: "At Camp Sidney Lanier in Eliot campers acted out Bible dramas written by Sidney Lanier Jr. 1870-1918 every Sunday in the woods. Lanier using ideas developed by his father poet Sidney Lanier Sr. 1870-1918 attempted to teach children the "art of living." They participated in a strict routine of music crafts nature study and other activities. Children went through a hierarchy of types of social organization to reach the highest form which was spiritual and represented by farm and home. " Finally at the end of the book a blank page is inscribed from Elizabeth Sidney's spouse Lanier to her grandson explaining the connection between Burt the editor of the book and the Lanier family; this inscription is dated 1933. A great association copy of this particular book. We don’t know the circumstances in which Enrico Caruso signed this book other than that Lista and De Amicis were both of Italian extraction and that the tale of the close connection between De Amicis and his dog would have resonated with Caruso who also loved dogs and whose dog Puck often traveled with him. The Stratford Company hardcover