Homer in the Sagebrush - Author's Copy, w/Lavish Inscription to his Wife

STEVENS, James

Published by Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1928

About this Item

12mo. Pp. 313. Bound in tan cloth stamped with brown and black lettering. Decorated endpapers. In the illustrated dust jacket, unclipped. Fore-edge untrimmed, head edge stained brown. Cover lightly soiled, with a cup ring on the front cover, and spine ends bumped. Dust jacket has been around the block, with chips and tears that have old transparent tape repairs. One slight manuscript annotation, presumably in Stevens' hand. With the bookplate of Jim and Theresa Stevens on the front pastedown. Generously inscribed to Theresa on preliminary blank leaf and half title dated December 16, 1928 Seattle. Stories of working men set on the Northwest Coast and interior, first published in American Mercury and Adventure magazines. One can see the appeal Stevens's stories held for George Jean Nathan and Mencken, given their unvarnished grit of a West filled with blue collar archetypes who were overworked or loafed, and fell prey to earthly temptation. Strains of Dreiser and Sinclair Lewis are apparent in Stevens gritty portrayal of inland cowpokes, sawmill hands and, on the Seattle waterfront, longshoremen and barstool philosophers. Stevens gained widespread fame for his telling of the Paul Bunyan fable in the mid-1920s and championed, with co-author H. L. Davis, a revitalization of Northwest literature ("Status Rerum"). This book is dedicated to Davis. Dust jacket is now preserved in a removable, clear archival sleeve.

Seller Inventory # 4758

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Homer in the Sagebrush - Author's Copy, w/Lavish Inscription to his Wife
• Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf, New York
• Publication Date: 1928
• Binding: Hardcover with Dust Jacket
• Edition: First Edition.
• Condition: Very Good+
• Dust Jacket Condition: Good
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)
• Seller catalogs:
  • Western Americana
  • Literature
  • Americana
  • Pacific Northwest Americana