1874 Mammoth Hunt · Washington Market · Thomas Nast — Harper's Weekly Jan 17

1874 Mammoth Hunt · Washington Market · Thomas Nast — Harper's Weekly Jan 17

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🗞️ HARPER'S WEEKLY · January 17, 1874
Complete Issue + Supplement Pages · New York

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A Thomas Nast front page and back page. The great Washington Market in full holiday color. The Virginius crisis continuing to unfold. A Russian village church in winter. And a supplement that carries a prehistoric mammoth hunt by Ernest Griset alongside serialized chapters of Anthony Trollope's Phineas Redux and Bulwer-Lytton's The Parisians. This is Harper's Weekly at its most ambitious — news, art, and the finest Victorian fiction all in one issue.

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🖼️ THE MAIN ISSUE
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🎨 FRONT PAGE — THOMAS NAST: "JUSTICE CHEATED AGAIN & AGAIN"
Full front page — Nast on the failure of the American justice system in the age of Reconstruction and Gilded Age corruption. His indictment is as specific as it is furious, and the image carries the full weight of his conviction.

🥬 FULL PAGE — "HOLIDAY GREENS — A SCENE IN WASHINGTON MARKET"
Washington Market was the great commercial heart of lower Manhattan — a vast, chaotic, magnificent produce market on the Hudson River waterfront that served the entire city. At Christmas and New Year's it filled with greenery: holly, pine boughs, wreaths, trees. This full-page illustration captures that scene in full — the vendors, the buyers, the piled greens, the gaslit winter morning. Washington Market was torn down in the 1960s to build the World Trade Center site. This image is its document. For New York City history collectors, Manhattan history enthusiasts, and anyone who loves the vanished commercial life of 19th-century New York — this page is irreplaceable.

⚓ HALF PAGE — "THE LOST 'VIRGINIUS' — TRANSFER OF THE CREW TO THE 'OSSIPEE'"
The Virginius Affair continues. After Spain seized the American ship and executed 53 passengers and crew — including Captain Joseph Fry — the surviving crew were transferred to the USS Ossipee for repatriation. Harper's documents this moment: the handover, the survivors, the diplomatic aftermath of a crisis that nearly caused a war. A companion piece to the coverage in the previous week's issue.

🕍 DOUBLE-PAGE CENTERFOLD — "'THE BLACK BENCH' — SCENE IN A RUSSIAN VILLAGE CHURCH"
A full double-page centerfold of an Orthodox Christian ceremony in a Russian village church — the "black bench," the bench of penitents, where those undergoing public penance sat apart from the congregation. A remarkable window into Russian religious and village life for an American audience that knew almost nothing about it, rendered in Harper's grandest format.

🦃 FULL PAGE — "TURKEY-SHOOTING"
A winter sporting scene — the tradition of turkey shooting matches that was part of rural American life, rendered with humor and energy.

🎨 BACK PAGE — TWO POLITICAL CARTOONS: NAST & BELLEW
A rare back page with cartoons by both Thomas Nast and Frank Bellew — two of the era's most powerful illustrators sharing the final page. Bellew was Nast's great rival and complement; seeing them together is unusual and noteworthy.

👨‍⚖️ PORTRAITS — CALEB CUSHING & GOVERNOR KEMPER
· The Hon. Caleb Cushing — distinguished diplomat and jurist whom Grant had just nominated as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, only to withdraw the nomination under political pressure. Cushing's portrait appears at this exact inflection point.
· Governor Kemper of Virginia — James Lawson Kemper, former Confederate general now serving as Governor of Virginia, one of the most prominent figures of Virginia's Reconstruction-era politics.

🖌️ HALF PAGE — "THE COUNTRY EDITOR — PAYING THE YEARLY SUBSCRIPTION" BY F.S. CHURCH
Frederick Stuart Church was one of Harper's most beloved illustrators — warm, witty, and technically superb. This domestic scene captures the ritual of the rural newspaper subscription payment with the affection that made Church's work so popular.

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📄 THE SUPPLEMENT PAGES
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🦣 "HUNTING THE MAMMOTH" — DRAWN BY ERNEST GRISET
Half-page supplement illustration — prehistoric humans hunting a woolly mammoth, rendered by Ernest Griset, the Victorian era's most gifted illustrator of animals and prehistoric subjects. Griset's work is collected as fine art; his distinctive style — dramatic, energetic, darkly humorous — is immediately recognizable. The mammoth rears against a stormy prehistoric sky, birds scatter, hunters close in. For natural history collectors, paleontology enthusiasts, Victorian science illustration collectors, and fans of Griset's distinctive work — this supplement page is a real find.

📚 "PHINEAS REDUX" BY ANTHONY TROLLOPE — CHAPTER WITH ILLUSTRATION
A serialized chapter of Trollope's Phineas Redux — one of the great political novels of the Victorian age, published in Harper's Weekly during its original American serialization. The supplement includes an illustration accompanying the chapter. For Trollope collectors and Victorian literature enthusiasts, holding a first serialized printing with its original illustration is something special.

📚 "THE PARISIANS" BY EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON — BOOK TWELVE
A chapter of Bulwer-Lytton's final novel, The Parisians, set in Paris during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. Bulwer-Lytton died before completing it; this serialized version in Harper's Weekly represents one of the last major works of one of the Victorian era's most famous novelists. Book Twelve, printed here in its original serialized form.

🎭 CEREMONY SUPPLEMENT ILLUSTRATION
A large formal supplement illustration of a Christmas or New Year's ceremony — clergy and congregation in a grand interior, beautifully engraved.

📰 ADDITIONAL SUPPLEMENT FICTION
· "Story of a Genius" · "Freddie Donoghue" · "All in All" — poem
A full literary supplement carrying some of the finest fiction Harper's published during this period.

🏪 PERIOD ADVERTISEMENTS
· The New York Times — "The Only Republican Journal in the City of New York" (full subscription ad — Daily, Semi-Weekly, and Weekly editions with prices)
· Knabe Pianos · Geo. A. Prince & Co. — 53,000 Organs & Melodeons
· Robinson Chase & Co. — Estates and Trust Funds
· Magic Inkstand — No Frog, No Horse
· Vulcanized Rubber-Coated Iron Pipe — Morris T. & Co.
· Travellers Insurance Company

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📋 CONDITION
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Intake photographs of every page — including all supplement pages — are included in this listing. Please review all images carefully. Questions are very welcome, and I'm happy to photograph any specific page or detail on request.

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📌 DETAILS
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Publication ········ Harper's Weekly
Date ··············· January 17, 1874
City ··············· New York
Pages ·············· Complete · 16 pages + Supplement
Format ············· Illustrated folio newspaper

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