Homer in the Sagebrush - Author's Copy, w/Lavish Inscription to his Wife
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1928. First Edition. Hardcover with Dust Jacket. 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. Very Good+ / Good. Item #4758
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.
Price: $150.00