Stage-Coach and Tavern Days - Alice Morse Earle 1900 - The Macmillan Company, New York - First Edition ‘Long ago at the end of the route,
The stage pulled up, and the folks stepped out.
They have all passed under the tavern door –
The youth and his bride and the gray three-score.


Profusely illustrated history of the days of the American stagecoach and the taverns where weary travellers inevitably stopped at along the course of their journey. Chapters include ‘
Old-Time Taverns’, ‘Tavern Fare and Tavern Ways’, ‘Early stage-coaches and other vehicles’, and ‘The Romance of the Road.’
  Alice Morse Earle (1851-1911) was an author, collector and historian, and among the most prolific writers of her day. The daughter of a Massachusetts tool manufacturer, she married commodities broker Henry Earle in the 1870s; the couple then relocated to Brooklyn, where they raised their four children.

Alice began writing in her forties, during bouts of insomnia. Her works are full of cheerful anecdotes from her Puritan ancestors, as well as many of her own adventures, such as scouring the countryside for Chinese ginger jars and stamped-metal sundials. Embedded with a nostalgia for more pastoral times, and a patriotic urge to convey 18th century American heroism, Earle sold tens of thousands of copies of her books, written in a style that appealed to a wide readership, and reflecting her belief that women played a key role in constructing both households and communities.

References: Kahn, ‘
Female biographers find female historians’ The New York Times 2013. University of Massachusetts Press, web.
pp. xvi [1] 449 [3]
  Half navy blue calf over blue cloth, spine in six panels, with five raised bands and gilt lettering, marbled endpapers, top edge gilt.   Condition: Very good, rubbing and wear to edges, small bookseller s sticker to front pastedown, pencil name to front free endpaper, 2cm closed tear to upper fore edge of page ix, and archival repair to closed tear on page xiii, both appear due to cutting open of pages by original owner.   Ref: 106483   Price: HK$ 2,000