Description
The Daniel Boone Edition of The Winning of the West by Theodore Roosevelt, with a manuscript leaf in Roosevelt’s hand.
Octavo, [four volumes], [xxvii], [1], 352pp, [map]; [vii], [3], 427pp, [2pp maps]; [ix], [3], 339pp, [map]; [xi], 363pp, [2pp ads]. Publisher’s full brown levant morocco, raised bands, title stamped in gilt, “Daniel Boone Edition” in gilt on each spine. Red suede doublures, suede endpapers, top edge gilt, silk bookmark in each volume. Uncut. Solid text blocks, all appear unread. Free of restoration or archival repairs. A few blemishes along rear board of Volume I. Touch of rubbing along margins of boards. Small bookseller’s label on second free endpaper of each volume, from Dennen’s Bookshop of Detroit, Mi. Frontispiece portrait with tissue cover in each volume, complete, with captioned tissue guards. Includes five fold-out maps, affixed to rear endpapers of each volume, printed on Japanese vellum.
(Wheelock, 13) (Cole & Vail, A11.1) (Howes R433)
From a limited edition of 200 sets, this being number 74, matching limitation in each volume. Includes a manuscript leaf in Roosevelt’s hand from Volume IV, page 13, regarding the Secretary of War Henry Knox’s failure to understand the Indian situation in the Western United States.
The original manuscript leaf about the beliefs of Secretary of War Henry Know reads as follows: [He probably represented, not unfairly, the ordinary Eastern view of the matter. He had not the slightest idea of the rate at which the settlements were increasing, though he expected that tracts of Indian] “territory would from time to time be acquired. He made no allowance for a growth so rapid that within the half-century six or eight populous States were to stand within the Indian-owned wilderness of his day. He utterly failed to grasp the central features of the situation, which were that the settlers needed the land, and were bound to have it, within a few years; and that the Indians would not give it up, under no matter what treaty, without an appeal to arms. / In the South the United States Commissioners, in endeavoring to conclude treaties with the Creeks and Cherokees, had been continually hampered by the attitude of [Georgia and the Franklin frontiersmen.]
This work was issued in full levant for $100 and half levant for $60. The full levant sold quickly, and the price was raised to $200 per set. The handwritten manuscript leaves all came from Volumes III and IV, with the manuscript for Volume I now held at the New York Public Library.
