Pictures By Old Masters Long

Henry, Will [with a Foreword By the author]: The Gates of the Mountains, NY Random House, Inc. 1963
Fine in Near Fine Dust Jacket Dust Jacket Design By Howard Morris; Cover Illustration By Culver Pictures, Inc.; Book Design By M.F. Plympton

First edition. xii, 308pp. Brown quarter-cloth, orange paper boards, gilt spine lettering and design, brown ink embossed front cover design, cream endpapers, light green top-stain, deckled fore-edge. Dust jacket price 4.95. SIGNED BY AUTHOR to half-title page. Book is in fine, tight, unread condition; dust jacket has light spine age-toning o/w fine, very bright and crisp and fully intact. "Henry Wilson Allen....as Will Henry and Clay Fisher [wrote] historical novels of the old American West. Among his peers, he was widely regarded as foremost among the most significant authors of historical novels of the West in American literature, [winning] five Golden Spur Awards from the Western Writers of America; the Levi Strauss Saddleman award; National Cowboy Hall of Fame Outstanding Service Award; Western Heritage Wrangler Award [and, most tellingly] three of Will Henry's novels were chosen in a survey of the 26 best Western novels of all time [by WWA members]. However, Henry has not yet been accorded his rightful place in the literary pantheon [because] there exists in this nation's literary establishment a negative perception of the western novel, [which] is a profound irony, in that the novel of the West may be, in the words of Will Henry himself, 'our only original literature.' Will Henry was adamant about characterizing Native Americans realistically and compassionately. [This] advocation...his historical scholarship, storytelling ability [and] gift for poetic language...[and his] capacity for fleshing out historical personalities and making them live on the written page is unparalleled in the Western genre; it is uncommon in even the greatest masters of literature. A writer's writer...an artist whose creations will live as long as the West....Will Henry, more than any other American writer, is the Old West." - Larry Blumenfeld. "An adventure novel of the Lewis and Clark expedition and love of a young scout for the Indian girl who guided the party through the Rockies." - front dj panel. " Every character in this novel is real and played out his or her part in the historic drama of the Lewis and Clark expedition. Told in the words of a young French-Canadian boatman named Frangois Rivet, the story gives a vivid account of the daily hardships in an unknown country, the battles with Indians, and the life-or-death suspense of formal meetings with hostile chiefs. Young Rivet's name appears on the official roster, yet little is known of him because he did not appear in the Lewis and Clark journals. When he was rejected for the expedition by Captain Lewis, Frank stowed away. But he did not return to St. Louis with the explorers, and his fate is unknown. The book constitutes his own (fictional) story of the journey and tells in poignant detail of his love affair with the Indian girl Birdwoman (Sacajawea), whose place in history is firm as the one who guided the party through the "Big Rock Mountains." Frank's love for Birdwoman was tempestuous. She was a favorite of Captain Clark's, and early in Frank's pursuit of her she told him that her heart beat only for the "red-head captain." Though Clark's loyalty was firmly anchored to his fiancee back in Virginia, he warned Frank to leave Birdwoman alone. Despite his adoration of Captain Clark, Frank's jealousy of his superior became an obsession which several times verged on open rebellion. On the return journey to civilization Frank impulsively left the expedition on the Upper Missouri to spend the winter with his Indian friends. Here he completed his diary and left it for posterity." - front dust jacket flap. Signed by Author First Edition Near Fine Hard Cover 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall

[SW: WESTERN FICTION FIRST EDITIONS WESTERNS]

Details

Boon Francis [pseud Edward bacon]: Lord What Fools, U.K. John Long 1935
Good Reading Copy

Undated but the British Library show it as 1935 and no reason to assume this is anything other than a first edition. 288 pages, size 7.5 inches tall by 4.75 inches, with a 16 page catalogue dated Summer 1935 to the rear. ' This first novel of life at a fourth-rate public school is brilliant in its quiet humour and acute observation of the frailties of mankind. Mr. Boon pictures for us the school, in a cathedral town, with its doddering headmaster and his dragon of a wife, their noisy and unattractive daughter, and the assistant masters, two of whom are rivals for her hand, not because they are in love with her, but merely because for them she represents security, in the shape of a permanent post in the school as house master. The atmosphere of intrigue and petty jealousy which pervades the establishment is admirably conveyed ; and the author, while heaping ridicule on his characters, still manages to direct some of the reader's sympathy towards them. Thus we feel genuinely sorry for the two masters when a third, with whom they had not reckoned at all, nearly carries off the object of their matrimonial intentions before their very eyes. The chapters describing the Old Boys' Dance and the School Speech Day are, in themselves, masterpieces '. Book - in marked and grubby yellow boards with blue lettering. Contents, marking and browning but still tightly bound. Good Reading Copy Only. A Rare Title infact anything by Francis Boon [pseud Edward Bacon]. First Edition No Jacket Hard Cover

[SW: Boon Bacon Fiction NOISBN25-30 R-5-2007 4th Sept CHECKED SEP 07]

Details