The Troll Garden. - 1905

New York: McClure, Phillips & Co.,, 1905. Octavo. Original red vertical grain cloth, spine and front cover lettered in gilt, front cover decorated in blind; in the supplied dust jacket. In a red morocco-backed folding case. With Pyle's illustrated bookplate on the front pastedown, and that of collector F. B. Adams, Jr. on the verso of the front free endpaper. Edge of front pastedown scraped, else a fine copy in a very good dust jacket with some chips, tears, and soiling. First edition, first printing, of the author's first prose work; presentation copy, inscribed to the great American illustrator and writer Howard Pyle: "Will Mr. Howard Pyle accept through me the love of seven big and little children to whom he taught the beauty of language and of line, and to whom, in a desert place, he sent the precious message of Romance. Willa Sibert Cather, April 26, 1906." The "seven big and little children" referred to are Cather, her five siblings, and their live-in cousin, as well as the seven short stories in the book; the "desert place" was Nebraska; the "precious message of Romance" was provided by Howard Pyle's illustrated writings, which were favourites of children in Willa Cather's generation. Cather took up the post of managing editor for McClure's Magazine, where several of these short stories had first been published, around the time of this inscription, and where Pyle was art editor from 1905, though he resigned the position the following year, apparently finding the office atmosphere too hectic.