{"product_id":"the-first-mortgage-by-e-u-cook-1898-dore-illustrated-victorian-verse-bible","title":"\"The First Mortgage\" by E. U. Cook, 1898 Doré-Illustrated Victorian Verse Bible","description":"\u003ch2\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe best-titled book ever to sit in an antiques shop: \u003cem\u003eThe First Mortgage\u003c\/em\u003e, Chicago, 1898 — a retelling of the entire Bible in rhymed Victorian verse, built on the era's favorite metaphor. The \"first mortgage\" is the debt contracted in Eden; the whole of Scripture, in Cook's telling, is the story of how it was paid. Gilded-Age America understood salvation and finance in the same breath, and no object captures that quirk of the age more perfectly.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe book earns its shelf space twice over: it is illustrated throughout with the brooding engravings of Gustave Doré — Joshua commanding the sun to stand still, the fiery furnace, the Ascension — the most famous Bible images of the nineteenth century, here in a working family edition. The green cloth cover carries elaborate silver stamping, worn to a ghostly shimmer; the frontispiece bears the author's portrait over a printed facsimile signature.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBest of all, the endpaper holds its provenance in pencil and ink: period owners' names — Myrtie and Effie Mullen among them, one dated April 1898, the very year of publication — and a later hand, Kathe Schwommle. Three readers, named, across the book's first life.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003eHistory\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eE. U. Cook's verse Bible belongs to a booming Gilded-Age genre: Scripture repackaged for the parlor table, sold by subscription and door-to-door across the Midwest. His Chicago publisher, Rhodes \u0026amp; McClure, specialized in exactly this trade, and \u003cem\u003eThe First Mortgage\u003c\/em\u003e proved popular enough to be reprinted into the 1900s. The masterstroke was borrowing Doré: the French artist's monumental Bible engravings of 1866 had become the shared visual imagination of Christianity itself, and American publishers reproduced them endlessly — meaning a farm family in 1898 could own images first made for luxury European folios.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe debt-and-redemption framing was no accident either. In the decade of farm mortgages, silver crusades, and William Jennings Bryan, no metaphor hit an American reader harder than a mortgage on the soul — paid in full at the end.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003eProduct Details\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003ctable\u003e\n\u003cthead\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003cth\u003eAttribute\u003c\/th\u003e\n\u003cth\u003eDetail\u003c\/th\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003c\/thead\u003e\n\u003ctbody\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ePeriod\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e1898 (first-year printing, dated on title page)\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eOrigin\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eChicago; Rhodes \u0026amp; McClure Publishing Co.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaker\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eE. U. Cook, author; illustrations after Gustave Doré\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaterial\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eGreen cloth binding with silver stamping; letterpress with engraved plates\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eStyle\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eVictorian religious verse \/ Gilded Age parlor book\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eProvenance\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ePeriod owner inscriptions to endpaper, one dated April 1898\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eWell-read antique condition, sold as a reading and display copy: rubbing and wear to cloth and silver stamping, fraying to spine ends, old shelf label to spine, and early tape reinforcements to hinges and title page. Text and Doré plates complete. Condition Guaranteed.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003c\/tbody\u003e\n\u003c\/table\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003eWhy It Belongs In Your Home\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSome books are bought to read; this one is bought to open in company. The title alone starts the conversation — every homeowner in the room will laugh before you explain — and then the Doré plates and the 1898 schoolgirl signatures finish it. Stacked on a console, faced-out on a shelf, or gifted to your favorite realtor, mortgage broker, or new homeowner, it is a $25 object that tells a story about faith, debt, and the American 1890s that no reproduction ever could.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47819165499497,"sku":null,"price":32.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/IMG_2411.jpg?v=1784654872","url":"https:\/\/viridianeclection.com\/products\/the-first-mortgage-by-e-u-cook-1898-dore-illustrated-victorian-verse-bible","provider":"Viridian Eclection","version":"1.0","type":"link"}