1874 Deer Drive Texas · Michigan Deer Camp · Street Bookstall — Harper's Feb 21

1874 Deer Drive Texas · Michigan Deer Camp · Street Bookstall — Harper's Feb 21

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🗞️ HARPER'S WEEKLY · February 21, 1874
Complete Issue + Bonus Feb 28 Pages · New York

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A girl nurturing newborn chicks. A wrecker's life in eleven scenes. White-water rapids on the New River in Virginia. Pickerel fishing through frozen ice. A deer camp deep in the Michigan woods. And stored with this issue — the magnificent double-page deer drive in the Texas Cross Timbers, a Victorian street bookstall, and a taxidermist's Australian natural history museum. This copy gives you two weeks of Harper's in one.

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🖼️ THE MAIN ISSUE — FEBRUARY 21, 1874
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🐣 FRONT PAGE — "THE FOSTER MOTHER"
Full front page. A young girl tending to a clutch of newborn chicks — the foster mother of the title — in a scene of rural domestic tenderness that Harper's rendered with its finest soft-detail engraving. This is the Victorian pastoral at its most immediate and human: a child, a brood of birds, the barn. Frame-worthy, warm, and immediately accessible.

⚓ FULL PAGE — "SCENES IN THE LIFE OF A WRECKER" — ELEVEN VIGNETTES
One of the most densely illustrated pages in this run — eleven separate scenes showing the life of a marine wrecker: the men who salvaged cargo from ships run aground along the coast, a profession as dangerous and morally ambiguous as any in the 19th-century maritime world. The wrecking trade flourished around the Florida Keys and the Outer Banks, where some communities were accused of luring ships to their destruction with false lights. Eleven scenes across a single page: the lookout, the race to the wreck, the salvage, the auction, the life between. For maritime history collectors, Florida Keys history enthusiasts, coastal history buffs, and anyone fascinated by the wrecker's world.

🌊 FULL PAGE — "RUNNING THE RAPIDS OF NEW RIVER, VIRGINIA"
A dramatic full-page illustration of white-water rapids on the New River in the mountains of Virginia — one of the oldest rivers in North America, cutting through some of the most dramatic gorge country in the eastern United States. Hunters or adventurers navigating the white water in a canoe, the forested canyon walls rising on either side. For Virginia history collectors, New River Gorge enthusiasts, Appalachia history buffs, and whitewater history lovers — this page predates the New River's National Park designation by over a century.

🎣 HALF PAGE — "PICKEREL FISHING THROUGH THE ICE"
Ice fishing for pickerel — a winter sport practiced across New England and the Great Lakes states — rendered with the quiet patience the pursuit demands. Figures bundled against the cold, lines dropped through holes in a frozen lake. For New England history collectors, winter sports enthusiasts, and fishing history buffs.

🦌 HALF PAGE — "A DEER CAMP IN THE MICHIGAN WOODS"
Hunters in camp in the deep forests of Michigan — the deer camp in winter, a fire, the trees pressing close. Michigan's forests were still vast in 1874, and deer hunting was both subsistence and sport. For Michigan history collectors, hunting history enthusiasts, and Great Lakes history buffs.

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📄 BONUS PAGES — FEBRUARY 28, 1874
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This copy retains pages from the following week's issue and supplement — a remarkable survival that significantly adds to the value of what you're receiving.

🦌 DOUBLE-PAGE CENTERFOLD — "A DEER DRIVE IN THE TEXAS CROSS TIMBERS"
The visual centerpiece of everything in this copy. A magnificent double-page spread — Harper's grandest format — showing a deer drive hunt in the Cross Timbers: the ancient belt of post oak and blackjack oak woodland that stretches across north-central Texas. Horsemen, hounds, deer crashing through dense brush, rifles raised, the forest itself alive with motion and noise. The Cross Timbers were one of the great natural features of 19th-century Texas, described by Washington Irving in his 1832 Tour of the Prairies. This double-page centerfold shows the hunt in full cry — frame it as a pair of pages or display it in its full double-page glory. For Texas history collectors, hunting and sporting art enthusiasts, Western Americana buffs, and anyone who loves the Cross Timbers region.

📚 FULL PAGE — "A STREET BOOKSTALL"
A supplement page of immediate charm — a Victorian street bookseller's stall, browsers leaning in, a well-dressed woman in a broad cape examining a volume, a boy hurrying past. The bookstall was a fixture of London and New York street life: cheap books, battered spines, the democracy of reading available to anyone with a few pennies. The illustration is beautifully composed and instantly frame-worthy. For bookshop history collectors, Victorian street life enthusiasts, book lover gift buyers, and literature history buffs.

🦅 "THE TAXIDERMIST'S AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM" / NATURALIST'S SHOP
A Feb 28 main issue illustration showing the interior of a taxidermist or natural history dealer's shop — stuffed birds, mounted animals, specimens in cases, the Victorian passion for natural history and collecting rendered in wonderful detail. Australia's exotic fauna was a constant source of fascination; this shop's displays likely included kangaroos, cassowaries, and other Southern Hemisphere specimens. For natural history collectors, Victorian science history buffs, and taxidermy art enthusiasts.

⛸️ "THE SLUMS — THE SLIDE"
A Feb 28 street scene showing children from the urban poor sliding on ice in a tenement district — the small joys of winter in New York's or London's slums. A companion piece to Homer's Station House Lodgers in spirit: the children of poverty at play, rendered without condescension.

🏪 PERIOD ADVERTISEMENTS — FEBRUARY 28, 1874
· Geo. Woods & Co.'s Parlor Organs — with a beautiful large illustration of the instrument
· B.T. Babbitt's Combined Steam Generator
· Devoe's Brilliant Oil
· Geo. A. Prince & Co. — 53,000 Organs & Melodeons
· Domestic Sewing Machine 1874
· Colligans Cottages
· Animal Kingdom — illustrated book advertisement
· Rollige — Baritone Stop for organs

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📋 CONDITION
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Intake photographs of every page — including all supplement and bonus 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 ··············· February 21, 1874 (+ February 28 pages)
City ··············· New York
Pages ·············· Complete · 16 pages + Supplement + Feb 28 pages
Format ············· Illustrated folio newspaper

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