DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE — TYLER, Benjamin Owen, publisher, Peter MAVERICK, engraver. “In Congress, July 4th 1776. The Unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America. When in the course of human events...with a firm reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.” Washington D.C., Benjamin Owen Tyler, 1818.

Benjamin Owen Tyler's elaborate, painstaking 1818 facsimile of the Declaration of Independence, dedicated to Thomas Jefferson, the first such decorative print with facsimiles of the signatures, based on the original manuscript. Tyler, a professor of penmanship at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, copied the signatures by hand. “The foregoing copy of the Declaration of Independence has been collated with the original instrument and found correct. I have myself examined the signatures to each. Those executed by Mr. Tyler are curiously exact imitations, so much so, that it would be difficult, if not impossible, for the closest scrutiny to distinguish them, were it not for the hand of time, from the originals” (Richard Rush, son of signer Benjamin Rush, and acting Secretary of State in 1817). 

More importantly, Tyler also won the endorsement of the author of the Declaration, Thomas Jefferson, to whom his edition is dedicated. Benjamin Owen Tyler's engraved facsimile of the Declaration of Independence won the endorsement of Thomas Jefferson, to whom Tyler dedicated his edition, in March 1818. Tyler wrote to Jefferson from Washington on March 14, 1818, informing him of the work and requesting permission for the dedication. Jefferson replied from Monticello on March 26, 1818, graciously accepting the dedication and recognizing the significance of the project, but emphasizing that the Declaration belonged to all its signers, not just himself. (https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-12-02-0440) Tyler sent Jefferson a copy of his work on parchment, and sometime after May 1818, paid a visit to Monticello, where he spent the day teaching penmanship to Jefferson's family.

The Tyler Declaration’s appearance coincided with the American public's heightened reverence for the nation's fundamental charter as it approached its 50-year anniversary, marking a time when "Americans discovered the noble sentiments in the Declaration," and began to view it "not as a mere instrument of diplomacy but as the birthright of a nation, as a manifesto of human dignity and personal rights" (Bidwell).

The book which Tyler used to take orders for his facsimile survives, The Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library of the University of Virginia. Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Quincy Adams, and other notables were among those who signed the book. 

Large folio (750 x 600mm). Finely engraved calligraphic text, the first few lines decorated with ornamental penwork flourishes and ornate capitals, key words of the text of the Declaration rendered in a variety of large shaded, gothic or cross-hatched capitals; at bottom right is the small legend "Engraved by Peter Maverick, Newark, N.J; imprint beneath engraved signatures of the Signers at bottom: "Copied from the original Declaration of Independence in the Department of State and Published by Benjamin Owen Tyler, Professor of Penmanship, City of Washington, 1818." 

Set upon a lighted easel, framed. The easel is 75” H x 24 ½ “ W x 27” deep. The depth and angle are adjustable by chain. Mounted on linen, several vertical tears, minor losses at margins, moderate paper toning, and several small stains, due to age and past display. An extremely good copy.

“If it is ever proper for men to kneel,” wrote Ayn Rand in 1972, “we should kneel when we read the Declaration of Independence” (The Ayn Rand Letter, Vol II, NO. II). An unparalleled gift for – and to – America’s semiquincentennial. Book # GB1001 $25,000. We specialize in rare Ayn Rand, as well as other legends and landmarks.