486.     REED, Nathaniel. The Life of Texas Jack. Nathaniel Reed is My Christian Birth Name, 41 Years Trusting in God. [Tulsa: Tulsa Printing Co., ca. 1936]. [1-2] 3-55 [1, blank] pp., half-tone portrait on title, text illustrations (portrait of Judge Parker and maladroit sketches of author’s exploits). 8vo (22.7 x 15.5 cm), original yellow printed wrappers with photograph of author, stapled. A wretched copy of an outlaw rarity, heavily waterstained with some damage to wrappers. Last page with awkward, old pencil scrawl, about third-grade level: “N. Reed Union Okla” (needs research). No copies at auction.

     First edition. Adams, Six-Guns 1831: “Rare.” Adams, One-Fifty 115: “A much sought collector’s item…. The author traveled over the country giving talks to interested listeners on the subject that crime does not pay and selling his little books for twenty-five cents…. The old man was more or less a four-flusher, though the records do show that he took part in several robberies.” Howes R131. McLoughlin, Wild & Woolly, pp. 432-433: “[Reed was] a long-haired owlhoot who was born near St. Paul, Arkansas, in 1862, left his home state at the age of twenty-one, and started his career of big-time crime in 1885 after spending two years of his life as an Oklahoma cowboy.” After being shot, the ever-adaptable Reed sought a new occupation, reformed his wicked ways, and took up street preaching in Tulsa selling this dreadful little tract for a quarter while warning others against sinning as he had.

($100-200)

Auction 22 Abstracts