1924 Rare First Edition - Memories and a Garden by Emily Eldredge Saville

Author: Emily Eldredge Saville.
Title: Memories and a Garden. 
Publisher: [No place, Cambridge, Massachusetts], Privately Printed, 1924. First Edition.
Language: Text in English.
Size: 9.5 x 7 inches.
Pages: x-212 pages.
Binding: Attractive and very good publisher’s original green-gray cloth binding, gilt titles to front cover and spine, with a mounted photographic illustration of a garden path on the upper board (hinges fine, overall slightly scuffed - as shown) under a protective removable mylar cover.
Content:  Very good, near fine content (bright, tight and clean - as shown). 
Illustrations: Includes a charming frontispiece illustration by Jessie Willcox Smith entitled “My Mother’s Second Little Girl,” as well as 3 photographic plates showing children and garden scenes. All illustrations are present and well preserved.

Estimate: (USD 150–200).

The book: This First Edition of Memories and a Garden is an intimate and poetic memoir, privately printed after the author’s death in 1923. Through a calendar of reflective essays, Emily Eldredge Saville conjures the joys and sorrows of her New England girlhood, her connection to her ancestral home, and the cyclical rhythms of nature and memory. A deeply nostalgic and beautifully composed work, it is enhanced by the delicate presence of Jessie Willcox Smith’s fronstispiece.

The author: Emily Eldredge Saville (1869–1923) was born in East Greenwich, Rhode Island, in the home of her grandfather, Dr. James Henry Eldredge. Raised amidst a lineage of physicians and writers, she cherished visits to her grandparents’ house and later returned to live—and eventually pass away—within its familiar walls. Her writing reveals a gentle spirit grounded in reflection and family heritage, and Memories and a Garden stands as a posthumous tribute to a life rooted in remembrance and quiet grace.

The illustrator: Jessie Willcox Smith (1863–1935) remains one of the most iconic illustrators of the American Golden Age. Her empathetic depictions of childhood graced the pages of Harper’s, Scribner’s, and numerous classic books. Her delicate watercolor frontispiece here, “My Mother’s Second Little Girl,” adds warmth and emotional resonance to the volume.