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The Tracy Log Book

The Tracy Log Book

A month in Summer - 1855. Charles Tracy's Journal with Original Sketches and Drawings by Frederic Edwin Church

By (author) Charles Tracy
Edited by Anne Mazlish

£35.00

Publishing 13th Jul 2026
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    • An intimate look at a month in the life of 27 well-to-do visitors – and a piano – on a visit to the faraway Mount Desert Island, Maine, in the summer of 1855
    • Includes a rarely seen series of 19 humorous sketches by the Hudson River artist, Frederic Church
    • An earlier black & white edition from 1997 sold continuously on the Island – and elsewhere – until stocks were depleted. This new edition includes additional images, many in colour, and a specially created map depicting the points of interest visited by the group
    Full Description

    The Tracy diary offers us the unique opportunity to accompany 27 nineteenth century travellers on an adventure of a lifetime, exploring Mount Desert Island, Maine, in August of 1855. This first group of summer visitors was a distinguished company and hailed primarily from New York, Hartford and Boston.

    In addition to Charles Tracy, a prominent New York lawyer, whose descendants through his son, Charles, daughter, Francis, and son-in-law, J. Pierpont Morgan, continue to summer on the island. The travelling party also included Frederic Edwin Church, a leading Hudson River School artist, and his friend, Theodore Winthrop, who died gallantly in the opening battle of the Civil War and then became posthumously famous as a novelist.

    After more than 170 years, Church’s playful sketches have been reunited with the first-hand account penned by Tracy, whose words strike a familiar chord in the memory of all who return again and again to the beauty and variety of Mount Desert Island.

    About the Author

    The 1855 diary was written by Charles Tracy (1810-1885), a lawyer from New York City. His daughter, Francis, who was on the trip that summer and later married J. P. Morgan, passed it to her son, Jack Morgan, who donated it to The Morgan Library in 1932. The Log Book, as it was titled, was edited by Anne Mazlish (1934-2025) and published with her notes and research in 1997. She was able to locate the 19 sketches by Frederic Church mentioned in the diary and included them in that publication. This new edition has been updated by John Bigelow Taylor, great-great-grandson of Charles Tracy.

    Specifications
    Publisher
    Officina Libraria
    ISBN
    9788833674001
    Publish date
    13th Jul 2026
    Binding
    Hardback
    Territory
    World excluding Italy and France
    Size
    248 mm x 216 mm
    Pages
    192 Pages
    Illustrations
    60 color, 20 b&w
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