Auction 5: Lots 18-24

Item 18, detail from title page

18. [BOOK CLUB OF TEXAS]. [PRENTISS, S. S. & T. M. Tucker]. Code Duello: Letters Concerning the Prentiss-Tucker Duel of 1842. Dallas [Chicago: Lakeside Press for] The Book Club of Texas, 1931. 30 pp. 12mo, original red boards, printed paper labels on spine and upper cover. Spine tips of fragile boards a trifle worn, mild foxing to endpapers. Contemporary bookplate and signature of Fannie and Donald McPherson.

First edition, limited edition (#121 of 200 copies). Lowman, Printing Arts in Texas, p. 24: "A gathering of correspondence exchanged between two Mississippi politicians regarding an affair of honor." Marcus, The Book Club of Texas 3.
($100-200)

Item 19

19. [BOOK CLUB OF TEXAS]. BEAN, Ellis P. Memoir of Col. Ellis P. Bean, Written by Himself, About the Year 1816.... [Houston: The Rein Company for] The Book Club of Texas, 1930. [6] 110 [2] pp., plates and text illustrations by David Williams. 12mo, original brown cloth over tan paper boards. Fine.

Limited edition (#191 of 200 copies). Lowman, Printing Arts in Texas, p. 24: "Not only a collector's book, but a reader's book." Marcus, The Book Club of Texas 1. Bean accompanied Philip Nolan's expedition to Texas in 1800. New Handbook I:437.
($150-300)

Item 20

20. [BOOK CLUB OF TEXAS]. DOBIE, J. Frank. Tales of the Mustang.... Dallas [Houston: The Rein Company for] The Book Club of Texas, 1936. 89 [1] pp., colored text illustrations by Jerry Bywaters. 8vo, original grey boards, printed paper label on upper board. Light foxing to endpapers and usual slight offsetting opposite illustrations, generally very fine in original glassine d.j. Signed by author on half title.

First edition, limited edition (300 copies). Adams, Herd 700. Dykes, Western High Spots ("Dobie Rarities") (#7 on his list of the 50 rarest): "It may be as difficult to find as any of the other Dobie limiteds except The Mustangs." Lowman, Printing Arts in Texas, p. 61: "One of the most sought after modern rarities.... Chef d'oeuvre of the Book Club of Texas." Marcus, The Book Club of Texas 6. McVicker A6. Merrill, Aristocrats of the Cow Country, p. 18.
($1,000-2,000)

 
Item 21

21. [BOOK CLUB OF TEXAS]. EDWARDS, H. S. Eneas Africanus. Dallas [New York: Marchbanks Press for] The Book Club of Texas, 1930. [45] pp. 12mo, original orange patterned boards, printed paper label on upper cover. Fine in publisher's black board slipcase with printed paper label (slightly darkened and rubbed).

Limited edition (#111 of 300 copies). Lowman, Printing Arts in Texas, p. 24. Marcus, The Book Club of Texas 2: "Marchbanks was selected to print this book, for he was an emigré from Ennis, Texas, who had gone to New York and achieved fame as a printer."
($60-125)

 
Item 22, detail from title page

22. [BOOK CLUB OF TEXAS]. RATCHFORD, Fannie E. (ed.). The Story of Champ D'Asile as Told by Two of the Colonists.... Dallas [Santa Fe: Rydal Press for] The Book Club of Texas, [1937]. 180 [31] pp., colored frontispiece, 2 plates. 8vo, original green cloth. Very fine, unopened copy, in publisher's green cloth slipcase.

First edition in English (first edition, Paris, 1819), limited edition (300 copies). CBC 2987. Lowman, Printing Arts in Texas, p. 24. Marcus, The Book Club of Texas 7. The author of this work, the first Texas novel (see Streeter 1068), never has been established. "After the manner of Chateaubriand, the novel deals romantically with the short-lived French [Napoleonic exile] colony named Champ d'Asile, located on the Trinity River about sixty miles from Galveston. Its ideological thrust is characteristic of the strong anti-Catholic bias of early Texas fiction" (New Handbook IV:218).
($150-250)

Item 23

23. [BOOK CLUB OF TEXAS]. TERRELL, A. W. From Texas to Mexico and the Court of Maximilian in 1856. Dallas [Chicago: Lakeside Press for] The Book Club of Texas, 1933. xviii, 94 [2] pp., frontispiece portrait, 2 plates. 8vo, original maize cloth over tan cloth. Very fine in original glassine d.j.

First edition, limited edition (#140 of 200 copies). Lowman, Printing Arts in Texas, p. 25: "Features a previously unpublished drawing by O. Henry." Marcus, The Book Club of Texas 5. One of the few accounts of a Confederate expatriate in Mexico.
($150-300)

 
Item 24

24. BOURKE, John G. On the Border with Crook. New York: Scribner's, 1891. xiii [3] 491 [1] [4, ads] pp., frontispiece portrait, photographic plates. Thick 8vo, original maroon cloth decorated and lettered in silver. Covers lightly rubbed, hinges cracked, generally fine and bright. Related typescript and news clipping laid in at rear.

First edition. Alliot, p. 36. Dobie, pp. 32 & 85: "A truly great book, on both Apaches and Arizona frontier." Graff 367. Howes B654. Jennewein, Black Hills Booktrails 6l. Rader 426. Wallace, Arizona History VI:8. WLA, A Literary History of the West, p. 106: "The essence of Crook's campaign against the Apache was captured in the writing of Bourke, Crook's aide-de-camp from 1872 to 1893. President of the American Folklore Society and an amateur anthropologist.... The crown jewel of [Bourke's] work is On the Border with Crook." "One of the last in the tradition of humanist-scientific military officers who recorded the American West, Bourke's historical work is vivid, observant, and humorous, and his ethnological studies remain invaluable to modern scholars" (Lamar). Personal experiences of an army officer in Montana, Wyoming, Arizona, and New Mexico.
($200-400)