18. BENNETT, Emerson. The Bandits of the Osage.
A Western Romance. Cincinnati: Robinson & Jones,
1847. [Bound with]: Kate Clarendon: Or Necromancy in the
Wilderness. A Tale of the Little Miami. Cincinnati
& St. Louis: Stratton & Barnard, 1848. [And]:
The Prairie Flower: Or, Adventures in the Far West.
Cincinnati & St. Louis: Stratton & Barnard, 1849.
[7]-121 [1, blank] + [3]-135 [1, blank] + [5] 10-128 pp.,
all printed in double column. 3 vols. in one, 8vo,
contemporary three-quarter brown sheep over dark brown
cloth, spine gilt lettered, raised bands. Some wear and
rubbing to binding, text foxed. Rare.
First
editions; Bandits of the Osage is the
author’s first novel. BAL 1049 (Bandits of the
Osage); 1052 (Kate Clarendon); 1054
(Prairie Flower). Graff 256. Howes B355("b"): "It
seems probable that this romance [The Prairie
Flower] was really written by Sidney W. Moss, who
accompanied Hastings to California in 1842, so some of the
incidents may be factual." Plains & Rockies
IV:162:1: "This work [The Prairie Flower]
probably first appeared in the periodical Great West
in 1848, when Emerson Bennett was its editor. It
describes the travels of a party of young men who crossed
the Rocky Mountains to California. Sidney W. Moss, who
traveled west with the party of Lansford W. Hastings in
1842, stated later that he wrote the story and gave it to
Overton Johnson, who returned to the states in 1844. Moss
asserted that Emerson Bennett somehow obtained the
manuscript and published it as his own. H. O. Lang, in
History of the Willamette Valley (Portland, 1885),
recalls having heard the story read by Moss at meetings of
a literary society in Oregon City in the winter of 1842-43.
See also the discussion in Alfred Powers’ History
of Oregon Literature (p. 195)." Wright I:295
(Bandits of the Osage); I:298 (Kate
Clarendon); I:304 (Prairie Flower).
Bennett’s
novels are an important component within the genre of
American frontier and western novels. Bennett’s work,
with that of James Fenimore Cooper, Timothy Flint, and
David H. Conyer, "provided the inspiration for the
avalanche of dime novels that poured off the presses from
1860 to 1895"—WLA, A Literary History of the
West, p. 136.
($400-800)