The Story of the Declaration of Independence INSCRIBED by author, by Corn, Ira G Jr.
Inventory #: 01922
Price: $30.00

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The Story of the Declaration of Independence INSCRIBED by author, by Corn, Ira G Jr.. Corwin Books: Los Angeles, 1977. Edition: First edition. ISBN: 0894740105. Hardcover, 5.75 by 8.25 inches, 228 pages. Blue cloth with white lettering on spine. Thirty-two pages of black and white illustrations. Inscribed by the author on the half title page: Happy Holiday Season / Ira G Corn Jr

Condition: Very Good Plus in a Good jacket. Spine ends lightly bumped; a few light smudges on page edges. A small cluster of pages has tiny dogears, as if the page edges might have been bumped. Otherwise Fine. Jacket shows some soiling and wear, is rumpled at the upper spine end, and has several closed tears along the lower margin, the longest of which is about an inch.

Contents: On July 4, 1776, after Congress had voted to adopt Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence with many amendments, the final document was sent to John Dunlap, the official printer of Congress. He spent the night setting type and printed the Declaration as a broadside so it could be sent throughout the colonies. Only eighty to one hundred copies were printed, and by 1969, only seventeen copies of this historic first printing were known to have survived, all in institutional hands. When a new "lost" copy was discovered on December 31st, 1968, it made headlines. On May 7, 1969, it sold in a three minute auction for $404,000, at the time, according to the Guinness book of World Records, the highest price ever paid for a printed document.

The man who bought that copy of the Declaration of Independence is the author of this book, which is a labor of love on the development and history of our nation's first official document. The book contains the story of how Corn's copy was found, and the exciting auction that led to its acquisition by him, but that is captured in only a few chapters. The more important focus of this book is the story of the men and events that shaped America's commitment to personal liberty and eventually resulted in our Declaration of Independence.

A wonderful read for anyone interested in American colonial and revolutionary history, the founding fathers, or early American documents.

Author signature on half-title page: