Books and Manuscripts

[Madison, James]
The Papers of James Madison, Purchased by Order of Congress...
Washington: Langtree & O'Sullivan, 1840. In three volumes. First edition. Tall 8vo. Edited by Henry D. Gilpin. Illustrated with facsimiles at rear of third volume. Modern quarter brown niger over marbled paper-covered boards, stamped in blind and in gilt; blue speckled edges; matching marbled endpapers; small dampstaining in fore-edge of several front and rear leaves in first and second volume; generally light foxing in margins of third volume. Sabin 43716

A fine first edition set of James Madison's first-hand journal of the debates of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787. As early as the 1790s Madison had planned to publish his journal, but over the next three decades continually postponed publication, due in part to editorial concerns, as well as a fear that they would be used against him by his political enemies, and that they could distort the meaning of the document. Following his death in 1836 Madison bequeathed his papers to his wife Dolley, who then sold them to the Library of Congress the following year. This collection, printed in 1840, constitutes the first printing of these debates, and has become an invaluable resource--and one of the only first-hand accounts--of those heady days in the summer of 1787.