Reveries of a Bachelor

"From one who seems destined to have no immediate prospect of enjoying other worries than these.  Merry X-mas 1901.  W. C. Hodges.  Tallahassee, Fla."

The above is written in Hodges' own hand and appears to have been a gift to himself (as he was wont to do from time to time).  

This collection of "musings", Reveries of a Bachelor (or A Book of the Heart), was written by Donald Grant Mitchell in 1850, but published under his pseudonym Ik Marvel. 

Under the guise of Ik Marvel, Mitchell published Reveries of a Bachelor, one of the most popular works of the day, as popular Uncle Tom's Cabin.  Today, the book has been largely forgotten.   Mitchell (1822-1908) was an agriculturalist and landscape architect as well as a writer.  

Ik Marvel, AKA Donald Grant Mitchell