Cincinnati, Prints from the Etchings of E.T. Hurley

Edward Timothy Hurley

Jan 1916 · U.P. James Bookseller

Ratings and reviews

I knew Cincinnati in the 1950s when many of the scenes depicted here had vanished, but the images still have great nostalgic power. The etchings are superb works of the period, museum quality. Mrs. Dunham supplied a poem for each one, varied as rhymed or free, in stanzas or unlined. She took the freedom in her poems to express personal value judgments: her love for Christ Church, her admiration for the Jewish community, her abhorrence of abuse to animals, her disgust at the filth of an abandoned building. The e-book version is made from a re-bound NYPL copy and thus lacks an additional etching that was tipped onto the original front cover. It shows a downtown street lined with streetcar tracks and dominated by a light-colored building that I cannot name, many stories tall and capped by a pyramidal roof. The user of the e-book has the advantage of being able to zoom in. The original book is only 13.4cm wide by 19.6cm tall, so the prints are quite small. The cover of the first printing is light brown. The copy before me contains yet one more small Hurley etching tipped in on the recto of the page that has Duveneck's etching of Hurley on the verso. The extra etching is apparently of the home of Kennon and Amelia Dunham at 2503 Auburn Avenue.