Members Of The Family (Pre-Publication Dummy)

New York: Macmillan, 1911. Advance Copy . Beige Cloth. Very Good/No Dust Jacket. It Is Probable That This Dummy Of Wister's Book Was Mailed To Either Jack Okey Or To Stanton Macdonald Wright For A Design For The Center Of The Cover And For Illustrations Covers Have Lettering And Borders As On First Edition, But Lacking The Ornamental Design At The Center, With A Printed R At The Lower Left And Right Of The Inner Border, Lacking In The Published Cover. There Are No Illustrations In The Book. The Title Page Does Not Mention An Illustrator, And The Copyright Page Reads "Published , 1911", Lacking The Month Of Publication. The Immediate Next Page Is P. 33 Of Sheets Of The Virginian [By Wister], Continuing To P. 48, The Rest Of The Pages Of The Book Being Without Printing. The Book Has The Ownership Signature Of Artist And Movie Art Director John Clark "Jack" Okey. There Follow Several Pages Written In Okey's Hand: There Is A Page With A Handwritten Paragraph: "Big Thoughts Are Like A Cool Clear Stream That Runs Down Through The Canyons Of Your Brains From Some Undiscovered Crevis [Sic] Or Spring And Flows Out Into The Sunlight From A Great Range Of Rugged Cold Dark Mountains. Sometimes That Stream Is Evaporated As Soon As It Comes Into The Sun-Shine Some Go And Grow Larger And Larger But Usually Sink Back Again Into The Cold Granite So Far From The Sea." The Next Pages Copy Out "Song Against Women", Two Pages, Noted As By Willard Hunting [Sic] Wright. [Wright Is Better Known As S S Van Dine, And He Published This Poem In Smart Set, It Being Anthologized By 1913. Wright Came With His Family To Santa Monica, California In 1900; His Brother Stanton Macdonald Wright Traveled To Paris With Okey In 1909 To Attend Art School. Willard Wright Went To New York In 1911, Where He Became Editor Of Smart Set, And Where He Published "Modern Painting" (1915]; Stanton Wright Did A Portrait Of Him Circa 1913-1914, And Later Returned To California, Where He Was Active In The Wpa Art Project In The Nineteen Thirties. Jack Okey Was Art Director Of The 1934 Movie Of Wright/ Van Dine's "The Dragon Murder Case." ]The Next Two Pages Are An Essay, Beauty. Beauty Or The Beautiful, Has No Sex, No Meaning It Is A Thing By Its Self - Apart From Any Other Phase Of Life, It Mayoccur In A Thousand Ways And In As Many Places. It May Be An Accident Of Nature Or A Creature Of Mans Poetry, Music, Painting, Sculpture. It May Come Upon Us When We Least Expect It Or We May Have To Seek It For Years With An Expert Eye. It May Be Man Or Beast, Thought Or Simplicity, Field Or Sky, Sound Or Silence Or All Of Them. It May Be But One Line Among A Myriad Upon Some Etching. It May Be But One Cord [Sic] In A Great Symphonic Poem - It May Be But The Linking Of A Few Words Together Or The Relatrive Value Of Two Small [Undecipherable] Of Color On A Large Canvas. Or A Wonderfully Rought [Sic] Section Of Some Great Statuary. It Is Here There Everywhere If We Only Have The Faculty And Ability And Sympathy To See. Feel Or Hear Or Even Smell It. The Sun, Day, Life Motion Or A Silent Night May Hold It All For Us And It All Depends Upon Us, Our Frame Of Mind Or Mood." "Sadness Makes My Thoughts Wander Out Into The Night Light." "We Slide Into The Land Of Sleep On Moonbeams." The Next Two Pages Hold A Quote From Pater's The Renaissance": "For Her I Would Build With My Own Hands A House So Beautiful That Only The Beautiful Would Dare To Enter In" Etc.The Next Page Is A Long Quotation From Out There Somewhere By Henry Herbert Knibbs. The Remaining Pages Are Blank.