The Oregon Trail

New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1931. First Edition thus. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. First Printing of this edition with numerous illustrations by James Daugherty of Parkman's classic account of a summer tour, in 1846, of Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, and Kansas, "with a view of studying the manners and character of Indians in their primitive state." . Introduction by Mark Van Doren, Tall, thick 8vo (212 x 141mm): xvii,[1],385,[1]pp. Publisher's finely woven butterscotch cloth, spine lettered in maroon, upper cover with maroon vignette of Sioux warrior and galloping mount, double-page pictorial title (in addition to letterpress title), fore-edge untrimmed; beautifully illustrated dust jacket priced $1.00. A superlative example, tightly bound and all but pristine. Grolier (American) 100, 58 ("one of the exuberant masterpieces of American literature" and the "classic account of the emigrant journey to the Rockies"). PMM 327. Field 1177 ("It is not too high praise of his work to say, that his pictures of savage life are not excelled by the narratives which had their birth in the personal experiences of Washington Irving, or the imagination of Fenimore Cooper."). Larned 2062 ("one of the classics of western narratives. . . . No other book on the West has enjoyed equal popularity."). Hubach, p. 100 ("No other book contains a more graphic presentation of the panorama of Western migration during this period"). Originally serialized in twenty-one installments in Knickerbocker's Magazine (1847-49), Parkman's account is "one part history and two parts travel narrative and adventure story. . . . There are many and better accounts of life among the settles of the West; but Parkman has given us a unique picture of life in a Sioux village before it was changed and eventually destroyed by contact with the white man. . . . By what Parkman called 'a sly trick' the publisher of the first book editions changed the title to The California and Oregon Trail, Being Sketches of Prairie and Rocky Mountain Life, hoping to capitalize on public interest in the California Gold Rush. . . . Eventually [when Little, Brown, in this edition] decided to reissue the work in 1872 with a new preface by the author, Parkman insisted on a return to the original title, The Oregon Trail." (PMM) N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional condition, with dust jackets carefully preserved in archival, removable mylar sleeves. All orders are packaged with care and posted promptly. Satisfaction guaranteed. (Fine Editions Ltd is a member of the Independent Online Booksellers Association, and we subscribe to its codes of ethics.).