LOT Old Heritage Auctions  /  2007 December Signature Texana Auction #661  / 

56420

Pike on Texas: Prose Sketches and Poems

Currency:USD Category:Books / Antiquarian & Collectible Start Price:1,300.00 USD Estimated At:2,250.00 - 3,000.00 USD
Pike on Texas: Prose Sketches and Poems
<B>Albert Pike: </B></I><B><I>Prose Sketches and Poems, Written in the Western Country.</B></I></B></I> (Boston: Light & Horton, 1834). First edition. Twelvemo (7" x 4.5"). 200 pages. Publisher's dark green floral-patterned cloth, lettered in gilt on the spine. Binding slightly dulled, small bookseller's ticket on the front pastedown endpaper. A few amateur notes and sketches lightly penciled on the preliminary blank leaves, occasional light to moderate foxing, else a very good copy. Housed in a custom quarter green morocco over green cloth clamshell case, with a book-back spine in six compartments lettered in gilt. Book description mounted to the inside of the clamshell case. "While serving as associate editor of the Little Rock, Arkansas, <I>Advocate</B></I> in 1833, Pike wrote in travel narrative, short story, and verse of his recent adventures. These vivid memoirs, tales, and poems, which first appeared serially in the <I>Advocate</B></I> were published by Light and Horton of Boston in 1834 as<I> Prose Sketches and Poems Written in the Western Country</B></I>. Pike's narrative is said to be the first book ever printed dealing with the region between Fort Smith, Arkansas, and Santa Fe, New Mexico. Certainly Pike was New Mexico's first Anglo-American poet as well as its first short story-writer in English and was among the first to describe in print the Mexican borderlands." -Thomas W. Cutrer, <I>The Handbook of Texas Online</B></I>. The first published account of a journey in modern times across the Texas Panhandle. Streeter also singles out this great rarity in his introduction as "desirable for a Texas collection." An unusual book by an unusual man, who besides hunting for furs on the Plains wrote poetry and was later a leading lawyer of the Southwest, and in his final thirty-two years head of the Southern Scottish Rite Masons. On pages [9]-80 are first-hand accounts of an overland journey west from Fort Towson, in what is now Oklahoma, across part of Texas by a friend of Pike's, one Aaron B. Lewis, and of a journey east by Albert Pike, where Lewis was one of the party, from New Mexico to Fort Smith, Arkansas. The remaining pages include poems by Pike and three prose pieces relating to his experiences in New Mexico. The preface is dated "Ark. Territory, 1st May 1833." The account of the journey west by Lewis from Fort Towson on the Red River, which began in September, 1831, and ended in December, is based in part on his recollections and in part on what appears to have been his journal. The account of Pike's trip east begins on page 36 with the heading, Narrative of a Second Journey in [sic] the Prairie. This began on September 6, 1832, and ended at Fort Smith, Arkansas, on December 10. <I>From the collection of Darrel Brown.</B></I><BR><BR><B>Reference:</B></I> Wright 2045. Sabin 62815. Streeter <I>Texas</B></I> 1150. Wagner-Camp 50.<BR><BR><b>Shipping:</b> Books & Catalogs (<a target="_blank" href="http://www.heritageauctions.com/common/shipping.php">view shipping information</a>)
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