[FLORIDA]
SPILMAN DEWEY, BYRD. The Blessed Isle and its Happy Families. St. Augustine, FL: Press of the Record Company, 1907. First edition, presentation copy signed by the author. Publisher's dark green cloth, pictorially stamped in red, green and white. 7 3/8 x 4 7/8 inches; [6], 211 pp., frontispiece and in text illustrations after photographs, 2 pp. ads at rear. Light wear, corners and spine ends bumped, a small white stain at the lower front corner, minor rippling to cloth on the rear board and spine, slight spine lean, first and last few leaves faintly toned, altogether a well preserved example of this attractive publisher's binding.

Byrd Spilman Dewey's second book about her life, and the various cats and dogs that graced it, in early Palm Beach, Florida. Dewey and her husband moved to South Florida in the early 1880's, when it was still a far-flung and sparsely populated state. She started out writing columns for newspapers and magazines, before moving on to autobiographical novels, finding success with her first book, Bruno, which sold over one-hundred thousand copies in its first year. The Blessed Isle was published a few years later with four chapters reprinted from articles that she had written for Vogue magazine. She invested her authorship earnings in South Florida real estate, becoming one of the co-founders of the City of Boynton in West Palm Beach. A scarce first edition - no copies in commerce, no records of past auction sales listed on RareBookHub and ABPC, and 8 institutional copies as per WorldCat.