One True Heart: Leaves From the Life of George Beckwith

New Haven [Conn.]: Henry H. Peck, 1880. First Edition (presumed; no prior editions or printings cited). Narrow octavo in dark green, polished, blind-stamped, and gilt-titled coth; 134 pages, frontispiece portrait of author, tissueguard; 19 cm A very crisp & bright near fine copy, with mild rubbing to board corners, including superfical chafing to spine extremities; else a remarkably crisp 145 year-old copy! . Hardcover.

Scarce. A memorial volume by Beckwith's daughter. George Beckwith (1810–1880) of New Haven, Connecticut, was a nineteenth-century almanac editor and publisher best known for Beckwith’s Almanac, issued annually from about 1848 until his death and continued by his descendants into the early twentieth century. A self-taught astronomer and moral reformer, he computed his own lunar and eclipse tables and filled the almanac with practical data, local chronologies, and commentary reflecting his progressive views—abolitionist, temperance, and women’s suffrage advocacy among them. Locally famous for his eccentric attire and open-air orations in the Tyler City and Cheshire areas, Beckwith transformed a routine reference work into a regional institution blending celestial calculation, civic record, and social conscience. // Astronomy; Reference.