On Pennbrook Hill - UNRECORDED

Unrecorded privately printed rarity, presumably bound and designed for family distribution by a New York City lawyer and avid sportsman who split his time between his primary residence in Manhattan and his beloved country estate, Pennbrook, located in the Somerset Hills of New Jersey.

Half bound in green roan over green cloth, tooled and titled in gilt to edges and spine. Green marbled endpapers unmarked. Binders label to front free verso reads, ‘The Atelier Bindery / For Charles Scribners Sons’. Titled ‘On Pennbrook Hill’ above a handwritten ‘by C.B.M.’ Illustrated with seven half tone plates from photographs to the rectos including images of The Raritan River, The huntsman and hounds, The gardens, Ladies along the ivied terrace wall and Ten portraits hang in Pennbrook Hall plus two line drawings titled Its timbered masonry and By Pennbrook lodge. Sage green printed wrapper bound in to rear.

A poem on the history of the Pennbrook mansion consisting of 24 five line stanzas fills the 8 pages between the illustrations. Additional leaves to the rear remain blank. Clean, unmarked and in good condition throughout.

C.B.M. [Clarence Blair Mitchell] was the grandson of the immensely wealthy rail tycoon and philanthropist John Insley Blair. The family built massive Gilded Age country estates across this specific region of New Jersey, including the famous neighbouring Blairsden Mansion in Peapack-Gladstone.

In a 2010 blogpost about this book, Henry Wessels describes it as ‘a unique printed book’

Unrecorded in OCLC and the online listings of Rutgers New Jersey Collection.