Small quarto. 163pp. With a presentation inscription from Longfellow to Maria ([Haick?]) Squire, dated April 12, 1853. An inlaid note explains the source: Longfellow had "entertained" Mrs. Squire's grandparents at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The true first edition of Evangeline was produced in a run of 1,000 copies; this is of the much more limited and therefore much rarer edition of fifty large paper copies, printed the following year. In original plain boards backed in tan cloth, with original yellow endpapers. No evidence that this copy ever had a spine label, as is sometimes reported of other extant copies. Modest overall soiling and rubs to edges, but binding tight and interior clean save scant marginal motes of foxing. Inscribed leaf tender at hinge. A very good copy, and very scarce. (BAL 12321)