1859 Brunel Obituary, Rome Map Centerfold, German Theatre NYC, Tattnall — Oct 22

🗞️ HARPER'S WEEKLY · October 22, 1859
Complete Issue · New York

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A historically significant issue — the memorial portrait of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the greatest engineer of the Victorian era, published five weeks after his death; a double-page centerfold map of Rome published as Italian unification threatened the Papal States; the German Stadt Theatre in New York; Commodore Tattnall; and a continuing Dickens serialization. A primary document of the passing of one of history's greatest engineers, in a complete original issue.

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⚙️ ISAMBARD KINGDOM BRUNEL — MEMORIAL PORTRAIT
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🔧 THREE-QUARTER PAGE — "BRUNEL" — MEMORIAL PORTRAIT
A three-quarter page memorial portrait of Isambard Kingdom Brunel — who had died on 15 September 1859, aged fifty-three, just five weeks before this issue. Brunel was the supreme engineering genius of the Victorian age — designer of the Great Western Railway, the Clifton Suspension Bridge, the Thames Tunnel, the SS Great Britain, the SS Great Western, and the SS Great Eastern, which Harper's Weekly had documented across five consecutive issues in 1859 as the world's largest ship. He was a British civil and mechanical engineer of great originality who designed the first transatlantic steamer. In a 2002 BBC poll, Brunel was voted the second greatest Briton of all time, after Winston Churchill. He had suffered a stroke aboard the Great Eastern's deck just days before her maiden voyage — his health declined, and he had a stroke on the SS Great Eastern. He was taken to his home in London, where he died on September 15, 1859, at age 53. This Harper's Weekly memorial portrait is a primary document of the passing of one of the most consequential engineers in history — published in the same pages that had spent months celebrating his greatest creation. A significant piece of Victorian engineering history and biographical history.

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🗺️ THE CITY OF ROME — DOUBLE-PAGE MAP
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🏛️ DOUBLE-PAGE CENTERFOLD MAP — "THE CITY OF ROME"
A magnificent double-page centerfold map of Rome — published at one of the most charged moments in the Eternal City's modern history. In October 1859, the Italian Risorgimento was sweeping through the peninsula — Tuscany, Parma, Modena, and the Romagna had already voted to join Piedmont, and the Papal States surrounding Rome were next in the nationalists' sights. Pope Pius IX was refusing to yield his temporal power, and Rome remained under French military protection. The map of Rome published at this exact moment is a primary document of the city at its most politically contested since the fall of the Western Roman Empire. A vivid, displayable, and very frameable piece of Italian and Roman history.

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🎭 THE GERMAN STADT THEATRE — NEW YORK
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🎭 HALF FRONT PAGE — "THE NEW YORK GERMAN STADT THEATRE ON SUNDAY EVENING"
A half front-page illustration of the German Stadt Theatre in New York on a Sunday evening — one of the great cultural institutions of New York's enormous German immigrant community, which by 1859 numbered more than 100,000 people and had transformed the city's cultural life. The Stadt Theatre on the Bowery performed German-language opera, drama, and comedy to packed houses, a vivid piece of German-American cultural history.

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🖼️ INSIDE THE ISSUE
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⚓ HALF PAGE — "FLAG OFFICER TATTNALL, U.S.N."
A half-page portrait of Commodore Josiah Tattnall — who had just become famous for violating American neutrality at the Battle of the Pei-Ho in June 1859 to tow wounded British sailors to safety, declaring the immortal phrase "Blood is thicker than water." His portrait follows naturally from the Pei-Ho battle illustrations in the October 8 issue. A significant piece of American naval and diplomatic history.

✍️ CONTINUING SERIALIZATION — "A TALE OF TWO CITIES" BY CHARLES DICKENS
A continuing installment of A Tale of Two Cities — now in its very final weeks of serialization as autumn 1859 drew to a close.

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📋 CONDITION
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I photograph every page of every issue so you can inspect the condition closely before purchasing. Please review all images carefully and don't hesitate to ask any questions — I'm happy to provide additional detail or close-up shots of any page, illustration, or area of concern before you buy.

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📌 DETAILS
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Publication ········ Harper's Weekly
Date ··············· October 22, 1859
City ··············· New York
Format ············· Illustrated newspaper, complete in 16 pages

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📦 SHIPPING & PRESERVATION
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• Stored in an acid-free protective bag and flat-shipped in a padded envelope with heavy cardboard reinforcement
• Fully tracked for your peace of mind

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