Condition Continued The paper quality is excellent. The inside covers and end papers, front and rear show the same green and white illustration. They are all very clean. There is a very tiny bit of loss just off the bottom edge of the rear end paper, very slight wear as well at the bottom edge of the rear inside cover. I spent nearly ten minutes turning over all of the pages, making sure that all of the 62 illustrations (including the frontispiece) were present. They are. And every single one has its captioned tissue guard in place. All of the tissue guards and all of the illustrations are in very good condition. One or two tissue guards had a bottom corner crease. The same was the case with the illustrations, one or two, not reaching the illustration itself. In front of one of the tissue guards, the previous owner left some dried flowers. They created a discoloration at the inside margin of the tissue guard and at the inside white margin of the facing text page. The pages are in very nice condition. They are very clean. I found four consecutive pages with several spots of soiling and later in the book I found two facing pages with a spot just off their bottom edge. That's all I saw. I didn't see any turned-down corners or placeholder creases. There is a light crease off the bottom corners of a half dozen or so consecutive pages near the end of the book, none reaching the print. There are no markings anywhere in the book. No attachments of any kind. And no one has written their name or anything else anywhere.
Doubleday Page & Company, New York, 1906. Hardcover. Written by Tryphosa Bates Batcheller. This is the First Edition (SD, 'Doubleday Page & Company: until 1922 first editions are determined by same date on title page and verso copyright page with no later printings; 1922 up first edition is stated'). Note that a Limited Edition of 100 copies was also published in 1906. There are a few of those for sale beginning at $150.00.
The first paragraph of the Preface: ' Italia Adorata. These two words seem to me to best express the universal sentiments of all the English-speaking people, and indeed of all the races of the civilized world, toward the country to which we all turn with a common love and admiration,-- for its natural beauty is given of God, for its great and historic past, for its present and heroic re-birth into the world of great nations,-- and last, but not least, for the charm and rare intelligence of the Italian people.'