Antique Victorian gilt ornate fancy decorative book CAPE COD FOLKS Massachusetts For Sale

Antique Cape Cod Regional Novel – Decorative Binding, 1881

Offered here is an early edition of Cape Cod Folks by Sally Pratt McLean, published in Boston by DeWolfe, Fiske & Co. following the 1881 copyright by A. Williams & Co. This important regional novel is bound in beautiful Victorian cloth with gilt-stamped title panels, black embossed floral and bird motifs, and patterned endpapers.

• Title: Cape Cod Folks: A Novel

• Author: Sally Pratt McLean (1854–1924)

• Publisher: DeWolfe, Fiske & Co., Boston

• Copyright: 1881 by A. Williams & Co.

• Format: Original publisher’s cloth, gilt and black stamped

• Illustrations: Includes engraved frontispiece “Blowing the Horn” and additional plates

• Provenance: Period inscription “Anna J. Hafie, 1896”

• Condition: Very good for age — strong gilt on cover, light shelf wear at corners, pages clean and tight with expected toning. Small rip to the tissue page. Writing in pencil on the first few pages (old prices etc).

• Cape Cod Folks is considered one of the most notable works of late 19th-century New England regional fiction, capturing dialect, daily life, and the sometimes satirical quirks of Cape Cod communities.

• The novel was controversial upon release, as Cape residents recognized themselves in McLean’s thinly-veiled characters and often bristled at her humorous portrayals.

• Today it’s prized for preserving Cape Cod culture of the 1880s in lively, humorous detail.

• Dialect & Local Color: McLean faithfully records the unique speech and expressions of Cape Codders, making it an important linguistic snapshot.

• Village Life: Readers get a vivid picture of church socials, clambakes, sleigh rides, and other aspects of Cape Cod rural life.

• Outsider vs. Insider Tension: The young teacher protagonist (based on McLean herself) is both fascinated and frustrated by the villagers — a theme that still resonates today.

• Controversial Realism: Local residents were so unhappy with the unflattering portrayals that the book stirred outrage on Cape Cod when first published.

• Early Women’s Authorship: McLean was a young Boston woman writing boldly at a time when female novelists were still rare.

• On the blunt honesty of Cape Codders:
  “Well, yeou don’t look no more like a schoolma’am than nothin’. Guess yeou’ll find out ‘taint all play teachin’ round here.”

• On daily village life:
  “We had clambakes on the shore, the smell of seaweed and steam rising as the shells cracked open — and the people laughed louder than the gulls wheeling above.”

• On local speech & dialect:
  “They say ‘haow’ for ‘how,’ and ‘neow’ for ‘now,’ and their voices roll like the sea itself.”

• On Cape Cod winters:
  “The snow came down in great white feathers, the wind whistling through every crack, but still the neighbors gathered for stories and song.”

• On character portrayals (humorous & sharp):
  “Old Aunt Zuby was forever predicting storms, her nose for weather as sharp as any barometer, and as crooked too.”