1877 Brooklyn Bridge Construction, Tweed Exile, Nast, Witch Trial — Apr 14
$123.45
Skip to product information
🗞️ HARPER'S WEEKLY · April 14, 1877
Complete Issue + Supplement Pages · New York
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
A richly varied and historically significant issue — the Brooklyn Bridge under construction, Boss Tweed's flight and exile in twelve illustrated scenes, a Thomas Nast front page, San Francisco newsboys, the Livingstonia Mission in Africa, and a supplement containing King James examining a witch, a beautifully rendered girl in a rye field, and a stunning Orientalist circular portrait. Strong content across New York history, Victorian art, and Gilded Age political illustration.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🖼️ THE FRONT PAGE
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
✏️ FULL FRONT PAGE — THOMAS NAST: "REFORM IS NECESSARY IN THE FOREIGN LINE"
A Thomas Nast political cartoon taking the entire front page — a pointed commentary on civil service and diplomatic reform published as President Hayes was making government reform a centerpiece of his administration.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🌉 THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🏗️ FULL PAGE — "FROM TOWER TO TOWER — THE SUSPENSION BRIDGE OVER THE EAST RIVER — VIEW FROM THE BROOKLYN TOWER"
A full-page illustration of the Brooklyn Bridge under construction, viewed from the Brooklyn Tower — the great stone Gothic towers then rising above the East River as one of the most audacious engineering projects in American history. The Brooklyn Bridge would not be completed until 1883, and in 1877 it was the talk of the nation. This view from the Brooklyn Tower captures the bridge mid-construction, the East River and Manhattan skyline spread before it. A significant and highly collectible piece of New York City history and American engineering history.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🐀 BOSS TWEED — FLIGHT AND EXILE
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🌍 THREE PAGES — "WILLIAM M. TWEED: ROMANCE OF HIS FLIGHT AND EXILE" — TWELVE ILLUSTRATIONS
Three full pages of text with twelve illustrations documenting the extraordinary story of Boss Tweed's escape from prison, flight to Spain disguised as a sailor, and eventual extradition back to the United States — one of the great criminal adventure stories of the Gilded Age. Tweed had been brought down by Nast's cartoons and died in prison in April 1878, just one year after this issue. A remarkable and extensively illustrated piece of New York political history.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🖼️ ADDITIONAL ILLUSTRATIONS
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
📰 HALF PAGE — "SAN FRANCISCO NEWSBOYS DISTRIBUTING THE EVENING PAPERS"
A half-page illustration of San Francisco newsboys — a vivid piece of Gilded Age urban life on the West Coast and a document of the newsboy culture that was central to American newspaper distribution in the 19th century.
🌍 FIVE PRINTS — "THE LIVINGSTONIA MISSION IN CENTRAL AFRICA"
Five illustrations with text covering the Livingstonia Mission on Lake Malawi — founded in 1875 in honor of David Livingstone. A significant piece of Victorian African missionary and exploration history.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🎨 THE SUPPLEMENT
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
👑 FULL PAGE — "KING JAMES EXAMINING A WITCH" (from a painting by C. Gassendi)
A richly detailed and atmospheric historical illustration of King James I interrogating an accused witch — robed courtiers and officials gathered around a large table, the accused brought before the king. King James was famously obsessed with witchcraft and authored Daemonologie in 1597; his witch trials are a significant episode in British and Scottish history. A dramatic and very frameable piece of Victorian historical painting.
🌾 HALF PAGE — "COMING THROUGH THE RYE" (from a painting by Miss Green)
A beautifully rendered supplement portrait of a young girl walking through a rye field, carrying a jug, looking directly outward with a warm and direct gaze. A lovely and intimate Victorian genre portrait — the kind of illustration that stands completely on its own as a framed piece.
🕌 FULL PAGE — "WOMAN ON A SOFA"
A striking full-page Orientalist illustration — a reclining woman in a circular composition framed by ornate Arabic calligraphic borders above and below, decorative Islamic tilework and geometric patterns surrounding the central image. A beautifully designed piece of Victorian Orientalist art, the fusion of Western figure study and Islamic decorative tradition producing a visually striking and unusual result.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
📋 CONDITION
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
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.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
📌 DETAILS
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Publication ········ Harper's Weekly
Date ··············· April 14, 1877
City ··············· New York
Item Number ········ 174130
Pages ·············· Complete · 16 pages + Supplement
Format ············· Illustrated folio newspaper
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
📦 SHIPPING & PRESERVATION
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
• Housed in an acid-free archival folder with Mylar overlay to protect the 148-year-old newsprint
• Flat-shipped with heavy-duty reinforcement to ensure safe arrival of the supplement pages
• Fully tracked for your peace of mind
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🔍 SEO TAGS
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Brooklyn Bridge construction 1877, Brooklyn Bridge under construction, East River suspension bridge, Brooklyn Tower construction, New York bridge history, Brooklyn Bridge antique print, Boss Tweed flight exile, Tweed Spain escape, Tweed romance flight exile, Tammany Hall history, New York corruption history, Thomas Nast reform cartoon, Nast front page April 1877, San Francisco newsboys, Victorian newsboys print, Gilded Age newspaper boys, Livingstonia Mission Africa, Lake Malawi missionary, David Livingstone memorial, King James examining witch, King James witch trial, Daemonologie James I, Victorian witch trial illustration, Scottish witch history, Coming Through the Rye, Victorian girl rye field, Victorian genre portrait, Woman on a Sofa Orientalist, Victorian Orientalist art, Arabic calligraphy Victorian, Islamic decorative art, Victorian circular portrait, Harper's Weekly 1877, antique newspaper 1877, Victorian illustrated newspaper, Gilded Age newspaper, antique illustration engraving, Victorian wall art, framing quality print, Brooklyn Bridge collector, New York history antique, history lover gift, rare newspaper collectible, museum quality ephemera, Gilded Age ephemera
1877 Brooklyn Bridge Construction, Tweed Exile, Nast, Witch Trial — Apr 14
$123.45