Jack Hall School Days American Boy Robert Grant 1888 First Edition Illustrated 
 
Title & Bibliographic Details
Title: Jack Hall; or The School Days of an American Boy
Author: Robert Grant
Illustrator: F. G. Attwood
Publisher: Jordan Marsh and Company, Boston, USA
Printer: H. O. Houghton & Co.
Publication Date: 1888
Edition: First edition, early issue
Binding: Original publisher’s pictorial cloth
Illustrations: Illustrated throughout with plates including frontispiece
 
Historical Context
This lively late-nineteenth-century American school story reflects the growing popularity of juvenile educational fiction during the Gilded Age. Works such as Jack Hall were intended to model character, discipline, athleticism, and moral development for middle-class boys preparing for professional adulthood.
The novel also offers a valuable cultural window into American boarding-school life and social expectations during a period of rapid national expansion and educational reform.
 
About the Author
Robert Grant (1852–1940) was an American novelist, jurist, and social commentator whose fiction explored education, class, and moral character in late-nineteenth-century New England society.
 
About the Illustrator
F. G. Attwood contributed a series of narrative plates enhancing the storytelling and reflecting the strong tradition of illustrated juvenile fiction in late Victorian America.
 
Binding & Exterior Condition
An attractive example in original decorated olive-green pictorial cloth with stylised gilt lettering to the front board and spine.
The binding remains structurally sound with:
edge wear 
corner bumping 
small tears at spine head and tail 
minor surface marks and light discolouration 
Despite expected wear, the decorative publisher’s binding remains highly presentable and characteristic of the period.
 
Interior Condition
Internally complete.
Features include:
light toning to pages 
foxing to preliminaries and endpapers 
occasional small marks 
several small, closed edge tears 
minor gutter cracking in places, including at the inner margin of the back pastedown
The illustrated frontispiece (“Haseltine’s Triple Play”) is loose but present.
All 394 pages remain present.
 
Provenance
Contemporary ownership inscription:
J. Y. Ward
Neponset Stock Farms
Readville, Massachusetts
Likely associated with a late-nineteenth-century Boston-area agricultural estate, providing appealing early American ownership provenance.
 
Physical Details
Pagination: 394 pages
Dimensions: approx. 19.5 cm × 13 cm × 3.2 cm
Weight: approx. 631 g
 
Rarity & Collector Notes
This title should be classified as:
Scarce
because:
Boston department-store publisher imprint 
juvenile readership survival loss rate high 
pictorial cloth bindings frequently worn 
illustrated American school fiction increasingly collected 
early ownership provenance adds interest 
Examples in original decorated cloth bindings appear intermittently on the market.