34.     AUSTIN, Stephen F. The Austin Papers. Edited by Eugene C. Barker. [Vols. I-III]: Washington: Government Printing Office (Annual Report of the American Historical Association…, 2:1-2 & 2:2), 1924, 1924, 1928; [Vol. IV]: Austin: University of Texas, [1927]. Vol. I: [i-ii] iii-vii [1, blank], 1-1008 pp. Vol. II: [2], 1009-1824 pp. Vol. III: [i-ii] iii-vii [1, blank], 1-1184 pp. Vol. IV: [i-ii] iii-xxv [1, blank], [1] 2-494 pp. 4 vols., complete, 8vo (23.5 x 15.4 cm), original blue cloth, spines gilt lettered. Spines light and gilt lettering dull, one hinge weak, another hinge split but strong, interiors fine, overall, a very good set.

     First edition. Basic Texas Books 4: “An essential source on the beginning of Anglo-American Texas.” Tate, The Indians of Texas: An Annotated Research Bibliography 1971: “Contains many scattered references to Texas Indians, especially concerning depredations and new groups emigrating to Texas from the southern U.S.” This is a difficult set to obtain complete because of the long period of publication. The final volume, published by the University of Texas, is particularly scarce. Besides of their research value and inherent interest, these volumes are essential for those collecting or dealing in manuscript Texana.

     From editor Eugene C. Barker’s introductions to Vol. I and Vol. IV:

The Austin Papers are the collection of materials accumulated by Moses and Stephen F. Austin in the progress of their busy enterprises from Virginia through Missouri and Arkansas to Texas. They consist of business memoranda, physiographical observations, petitions and memorials to local and superior governments, political addresses and proclamations, and much personal and official correspondence. Moses Austin illustrated in his own career the typical aspects of the business man in the Westward Movement; and Stephen F. Austin was, to a degree not approached by any other colonial proprietor in our history, the founder and the indispensable guardian and director during its early vicissitudes of a great American Commonwealth…. In their entirety, the Austin Papers are an absorbing human document…illuminating the social and economic history—and to some extent the political history—of the American frontier from 1789 to 1836.

($150-300)

Auction 22 Abstracts