Aegri Somnia. Recreations of a Sick Room.

A uniquely assembled presentation copy with the author’s additions and corrections that appear in the properly published edition. Warmly inscribed, “Mrs. Abby Bacon—From her affectionate & grateful Husband E. Bacon. Utica, May 5, 1843.”

Ribbed cloth, 12mo. Paginated to 78 (more on that below). Mounted paper label bearing cover title, A Sick Room’s Recreations. Rubbing and bumping, fraying to cloth at extremities, light general foxing, overall Very Good. The original 45pp text is bound with a second segment, dated 1843 and paginated 47-73; pages 75-78 are then tipped in before the rear flyleaf. There are 2 leaves between 45 and 47, explaining, “To the original imprint of the first forty-five pages of this small collection the other articles since written ... are now added to a few copies of the original ones remaining on hand.” Another 4 pages of text are tipped in after p.73, followed by two blank leaves with 3 clippings mounted on 2 of the pages. So, collated something like: (v), vi, (i), 8-45, (5), 47-73, (1), (4), (4), 75-78pp -ish.

The original text is mostly comprised of verses aligned with the author’s “Apology:” “The following articles, as their title purports, literally the ‘Recreations of a sick room,’ long protracted, and the creations of much weakness and infirmity” (v). Two poems regard the deaths of his children, another reflects on a portrait of his deceased father, John Bacon (1738-1820), who preceded him in service as a jurist and elected representative from Massachusetts after the American Revolution. The second segment is more varied. It reprints Dickens’ “Death of a Debtor,” followed by Bacon’s adaptation in verse, and a short essay, “The Poetical Temperament and Faculty.” Bacon repeatedly references Yale, where he graduated in 1794.

This unique copy has 20 items pasted in, including several that fold down or are inserted as continuations of the printed text. Most are verses published by Bacon in the Utica Observer, or authored on special occasions after the initial printing, like the dedication of the chapel at the New York State Lunatic Asylum. His “Apology” distinguishes that the work is being “printed not published” (emphasis his), which opens the distinction from the 107-page version officially attributed to Bacon and published in New York by John Allen in 1843.

Many of the edits and additions are realized in the Allen edition, based on comparison to the text (available online). For example, the six clippings inserted at page 75 become part of the poem “The Seasons.” An added manuscript stanza in “Memory’s Pains,” and edits for word choice pencilled throughout the text of the present copy, are printed in the later version. A manuscript table of contents suggests sequencing for the added material, too.

It is unclear whether the annotations were made before or after the inscription—and by whom. Abigail Bacon was educated at Sarah Pierce’s Female Academy prior to marrying Ezekiel in 1799. Whether she had any editorial influence is unknown. Three of the clippings are attributed to other authors, making them seem more likely to have been added by Abigail, but the manuscript content is generally consistent with the penmanship of the inscription, if slightly more tentative.

Ezekiel Bacon (1776-1870) was a Massachusetts Representative who served in Congress from 1810-1813. He was Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means leading up to the War of 1812, and became First Comptroller of the Treasury in 1814. He resigned and moved to Utica in 1815, where he served as a Justice in the Court of Common Pleas, served in a New York state constitutional convention in 1821, and ran unsuccessfully for Congress a year later. At time of his death in 1870, he was the last surviving representative of the Madison administration. His correspondence with Madison and Thomas Jefferson is preserved in the National Archives and the Morgan Library, which has the only copy of the 45-page printing with pasted-in clippings, originally part of the John Pierpont Collection. OCLC shows two copies of a Northway printing that has the text up to page 73.

Ref. Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress; The Committee On Ways And Means: A History 1789–2019; Dexter, Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College.