BOWMAN, Earl Wayland. Arrowrock. Songs and Stories of a Prodigal. Caldwell, Idaho: Caxton Printers. 1931. 8vo. De Luxe edition, limited to one hundred signed and numbered copies, this being number 6. Publisher’s very dark green patterned leather lettered in gilt to spine and upper board, top edge gilt, in the scarce dust jacket, a wraparound design by the author which is repeated to frontispiece. The boards clean and bright, gently rubbed to some edges, the binding tight and square with mild nibble inside front joint. The contents clean, fine though with lengthy gift inscription from one mayor to another, with the recipient mayor’s bookplate to front pastedown. The dust jacket unpriced, complete, with very mild nicks and rubbing. Fine.
A kind of a tapestry of the author’s entire career here, compiling his prose and verse of all forms, styles, and themes, threaded together however vaguely by his innate adoration of the American West. ‘The Ramblin’ Kid’ Bowman was born in Missouri in 1875, orphaned at ten, and spent his entire youth playing out, admittedly not as poetically, a scene akin to Red Dead Redemption—apologies if that reference is lost on you—but i.e. learning to live off the land, cattle punching, butchering, cooking, dishwashing, coal digging, and working in a print shop. His nomadic spirit led him through Texas, Utah, New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, Old Mexico, and Indian Territory, experiences which armed him with enough material to last a lifetime. He settled eventually and for a time in Idaho, as a rancher, and even when he left the state for California, he endorsed Idaho in his writing. The book represents an early volume by Caxton Printers, one of the oldest independent publishers west of the Rockies, which the mayor’s gift inscription proudly attests. Scarce in jacket.
BOWMAN, Earl Wayland. Arrowrock. Songs and Stories of a Prodigal. Caldwell, Idaho: Caxton Printers. 1931. 8vo. De Luxe edition, limited to one hundred signed and numbered copies, this being number 6. Publisher’s very dark green patterned leather lettered in gilt to spine and upper board, top edge gilt, in the scarce dust jacket, a wraparound design by the author which is repeated to frontispiece. The boards clean and bright, gently rubbed to some edges, the binding tight and square with mild nibble inside front joint. The contents clean, fine though with lengthy gift inscription from one mayor to another, with the recipient mayor’s bookplate to front pastedown. The dust jacket unpriced, complete, with very mild nicks and rubbing. Fine.
A kind of a tapestry of the author’s entire career here, compiling his prose and verse of all forms, styles, and themes, threaded together however vaguely by his innate adoration of the American West. ‘The Ramblin’ Kid’ Bowman was born in Missouri in 1875, orphaned at ten, and spent his entire youth playing out, admittedly not as poetically, a scene akin to Red Dead Redemption—apologies if that reference is lost on you—but i.e. learning to live off the land, cattle punching, butchering, cooking, dishwashing, coal digging, and working in a print shop. His nomadic spirit led him through Texas, Utah, New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, Old Mexico, and Indian Territory, experiences which armed him with enough material to last a lifetime. He settled eventually and for a time in Idaho, as a rancher, and even when he left the state for California, he endorsed Idaho in his writing. The book represents an early volume by Caxton Printers, one of the oldest independent publishers west of the Rockies, which the mayor’s gift inscription proudly attests. Scarce in jacket.
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