Rare Book Monthly

Book Catalogue Reviews - July - 2013 Issue

Texas and the West from Kenston Rare Books

Kenstonsu2013

Kenston and Josey (he doesn't look much like Clint Eastwood).

Kenston Rare Books has issued their catalogue for Summer 2013. Fine Books on Texas and the American West. Most of the material relates to Texas, appropriate for a state so large, but there are many items pertaining to states from Montana to New Mexico also to be found. Subjects are generally those you might expect to be important in the West – ranching and farming, gun fighting... hm... did they do anything else in the Old West? Well, let's take a look inside and see.

The cover of this catalogue quite resembles the cover of item 44 within: The Rebel Outlaw: Josey Wales. The story is fictional, though loosely based on events in Missouri at the end of the Civil War. The book would become famous when turned into a film with Clint Eastwood in the title role. It differed from most in that the hero Wales hooks up with former supporters of the Confederacy against aggressive pro-Union men from Kansas. This is not surprising considering author Forrest Carter's past. A rabid racist, KKK member, radio personality and political candidate, his views were extreme even for the South of the 1950s and 1960s. His views were so extreme that he finished last in his political runs, though he did manage to hook on as an unnamed speech writer for segregationist Governor George Wallace of Alabama (some attribute Wallace's famous “segregation forever” line to Carter). Several instances of extreme violence have also been attributed to Carter. Late in his life, Carter moved to Texas, changed his first name, and began writing novels with a much more tolerant theme, denying he was even the same person family and friends from Alabama recognized. He took on a cowboy persona and avoided his past, though never apologizing for it nor indicating he no longer held such repugnant views. He died under mysterious circumstances after a fight with his son. Offered is the 1973 true first edition, a private press work believed to have been printed in only 25-75 copies. A much larger run was later printed by a regular publisher, followed by the Eastwood movie. Priced at $2,500.

Here is a book about three other men who moved to Texas, though under different circumstances: G. T. T. Gone to Texas: Letters from Our Boys. Thomas Hughes' three sons went to Texas from England to take up ranching. They bought an 800 acre ranch near Bourne (a little west of San Antonio) and operated a successful cattle, sheep and horse ranch. They were good sons and wrote back to their father regularly, so dad compiled their letters and some from other family members and published them in this book in 1884. The letters cover the years 1878-1883. Item 151. $250.

There are lots of executions still taking place in Texas, occasionally women, but only one woman was ever hanged in the state. That honor goes to Chipita Rodriguez. She ran a small stop in South Texas where travelers could get a meal and a cot for the night. One such traveler was killed one night, his body and gold found down the river. She denied being involved to the end, and there is much doubt to this day. In 1985, the Texas Legislature passed a resolution saying she did not get a fair trial. That didn't matter in 1863. She was taken from her jail cell in San Patricio and hanged from a mesquite tree (there aren't any serious trees in South Texas to hang people from). Item 268 is A Noose for Chipita, by Vernon Smylie, published in 1970. It tells not only about the event, but the legends that arose from it. Supposedly, her ghost haunts the area, particularly when a woman is executed. $25.

Item 63 is a collection of six pamphlets published by Industrial Dallas circa 1927. They promote the city as a place to live and locate a business. Its economy, laws, climate, residential areas, educational facilities and recreation are explained to the would-be new resident. In case people are concerned about undesirables, it is pointed out that “Dallas is made up largely of native Americans, with a negligible foreign element.” Lest you think this means there were a lot of Indians living in Dallas in 1927, “native Americans” meant born-in-America Anglos in those days. $250.

Rare Book Monthly

  • <b>Bonhams, Jun 13 results:</b> Darwin, Charles. <i>On the Origin of Species.</i> Presentation Copy. Sold for $500,075.
    <b>Bonhams, Jun 13 results:</b> Darwin, Charles. Autograph Letter Signed, 3 pp, negotiating the 2nd American edition with Appleton. Sold for $21,325.
    <b>Bonhams, Jun 13 results:</b> Hemingway, Ernest. Autograph Letter Signed, 8 pp, Paris, 1924, to his father discussing Bullfighting, Stories, and his new baby. Sold for $25,075.
    <b>Bonhams, Jun 13 results:</b> Shakespeare, William. <i>Corialanus.</i> London, 1623. 1st printing [Extracted from the First Folio]. Sold for $50,075.
    <b>Bonhams, Jun 13 results:</b> Swift, Jonathan. <i>Gulliver's Travels.</i> London, 1726. 1st edition, Teerink's A edition, fine, large copy. Sold for $21,325.
    <b>Bonhams, Jun 13 results:</b> Fitzroy, Robert. Autograph Letter Signed to agent Thomas Stilwell, informing him of the progress of H.M.S. Beagle. Sold for $17,575.
    <center><b>Bonhams<br> Property from the Collection of Nicole and William R. Keck II</b>
    <b>Bonhams, Jun 13 results:</b> Shakespeare, William. <i>Sonnets.</i> 1901. 2 volumes. Printed on vellum and illuminated by Ross Turner, bound by Trautz-Bauzonnet. Sold for $13,825.
    <b>Bonhams, Jun 13 results:</b> Beardsley, Aubrey. <i>The Birth, Life, and Acts of King Arthur.</i> 1893-94. 2 volumes. Contemporary painted vellum gilt by Chivers. Sold for $5,325.
    <b>Bonhams, Jun 13 results:</b> Assisi, St. Francis. <i>The Canticle of Brother Sun.</i> Illuminated on vellum, for the Grolier Society. Sold for $7,575.
    <b>Bonhams, Jun 13 results:</b> Rackham, Arthur. <i>Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens.</i> 1/500 copies signed by Rackham. Sold for $4,825.
    <b>Bonhams, Jun 13 results:</b> Proust, Marcel. <i>Du coté de chez Swann.</i> 1st edition, 1st issue. Inscribed by Proust. Sold for $8,825.
  • <b>Swann Auction Galleries Sep 26:</b> Textile of the Great White Fleet, with portraits of Theodore Roosevelt, Rear Admiral Robley D. Evans & successor Charles Stillman Sperry, 1908. $3,000 to $4,000.
    <b>Swann Auction Galleries Sep 26:</b> William J. Stone, <i>Declaration of Independence,</i> Force printing, 1833. $15,000 to $25,000.
    <b>Swann Auction Galleries Sep 26:</b> Shugart family papers including documentation of the Underground Railroad, 63 items, 1838-81. $30,000 to $40,000.
    <b>Swann Auction Galleries Sep 26:</b> Records of the Dickinson & Shrewsbury salt works, over 2000 items, with extensive slave labor correspondence, legal records & receipts, bulk 1820-1865. $80,000 to $120,000.
    <b>Swann Auction Galleries Sep 26:</b> Gloria Steinem, typescript for her speech <i>Living the Revolution,</i> with related letters and documents, 1941-77. $5,000 to $7,500.
    <b>Swann Auction Galleries Sep 26:</b> <i>Liberty Triumphant or the Downfall of Oppression,</i> depicting the aftermath of the Boston Tea Party, c. 1774. $12,000 to $18,000.
    <b>Swann Auction Galleries Sep 26:</b> Juan Eusebio Nieremberg, <i>Historia naturae, maxime peregrinae, libris XVI distincta,</i> Antwerp, 1635. $6,000 to $9,000.
    <b>Swann Auction Galleries Sep 26:</b> Antonio de Mayorga, manuscript map of Mexico City, 1779. $6,000 to $9,000.
    <b>Swann Auction Galleries Sep 26:</b> Thomas L. McKenney & James Hall, <i>History of the Indian Tribes of North America,</i> first edition, 3 volumes, Philadelphia, 1842-44. $25,000 to $35,000.
    <b>Swann Auction Galleries Sep 26:</b> Samuel Walker, diary of the entire first cruise of the USS Kineo, a gunboat on the Mississippi, 1854-69. $10,000 to $15,000.
    <b>Swann Auction Galleries Sep 26:</b> Scrapbook on early Stanford football, with letters from Walter Camp, 1893-95 & 1931. $8,000 to $12,000.
  • <b>Lark Mason Associates, Aug 8-27:</b> Roberts, David. Twenty Lithographs of the Holy Land, 19th Century. $2,000 to $4,000.
    <b>Lark Mason Associates, Aug 8-27:</b> Declaration by the Reps. of the United Colonies of N.A. 1775. $8,000 to $12,000.
    <b>Lark Mason Associates, Aug 8-27:</b> Composer Jerome Kern personal Letters, Albums and Other. $15,000 to $25,000.
    <b>Lark Mason Associates, Aug 8-27:</b> Paine, Thomas. <i>Common Sense,</i> London 1776. $8,000 to $12,000.
    <b>Lark Mason Associates, Aug 8-27:</b> Stowe, Harriet Beecher. <i>Uncle Tom’s Cabin,</i> Cleveland 1852. $4,000 to $6,000.
    <b>Lark Mason Associates, Aug 8-27:</b> Hobbes, Thomas. <i>Leviathan,</i> 3rd edition, London 1651. $2,000 to $3,000.
    <b>Lark Mason Associates, Aug 8-27:</b> Anno Regni Georgii III. Intolerable Acts and other Bills, 1774. $15,000 to $20,000.
    <b>Lark Mason Associates, Aug 8-27:</b> Wilberforce, William. An Abstract of the Evidence, 5 Letters, and two books. $6,000 to $9,000.
    <b>Lark Mason Associates, Aug 8-27:</b> Nightingale, Florence. Notes on Nursing and Signed Letters, ca. 1860 $4,000 to $6,000.
    <b>Lark Mason Associates, Aug 8-27:</b> Tolstov, Leo. <i>War and Peace,</i> 5 volumes, 1886. $3,000 to $5,000.
    <b>Lark Mason Associates, Aug 8-27:</b> Dickinson, John. Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, 1768. $1,500 to $2,500.
    <b>Lark Mason Associates, Aug 8-27:</b> Twain, Mark. <i>Tom Sawyer,</i> 1877 [and] <i>Huckleberry Finn,</i> 1885. $4,000 to $6,000.

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