Charles A. Siringo. Riata and Spurs. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1927. First edition. Inscribed by Siring...
Description
Charles A. Siringo. Riata and Spurs. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1927. First edition. Inscribed by Siringo on the front free endpaper to Karl Moon, noted photographer of the Native American. 8vo. xiv, 276pp. Frontispiece. Introduction by Gifford Pinchot. Illustrated with photographs. Original yellow-brown pictorial cloth. Fore-edge of one page chipped. In dust jacket, with minor chipping at joints and flap folds, and with slight darkening of spine and front panel. Near fine.Siringo's full-page inscription reads, in full: "To my friend, Carl [sic] Moon, the Indian artist, with good wishes from the author, Chas. A. Siringo Pasadena, Calif. July 6th 1927." Karl Moon was an early-20th Century photographer whose images of Native Americans were both popular and critically acclaimed.
A beautiful copy of the suppressed first edition of Charlie Siringo's last book. Ex Ben E. Pingenot.
References: Howes S516. Six-Guns 2028.
More Information:
The autobiographical Riata and Spurs - Siringo's last book, and his first issued by a major publisher - contained some material reprinted from both A Lone Star Cowboy and the original, unexpurgated version of A Cowboy Detective. In fact, a good half of the book was taken up with material suppressed by previous court injunctions, so it was no surprise that, despite Siringo's ornery persistence, this book was recalled, and a "revised edition" - with new material originally intended for another book replacing lengthy references to the author's experiences with the Pinkerton Agency - was hastily issued in its place. As with other of Siringo's "suppressed editions" this one is quite scarce.
References: Burs 359. Dobie, in Prefaces ("[though A Texas Cowboy is generally considered Siringo's classic,] Riata and Spurs is the meatier book, its parts more amply filled out"). Herd 2075 ("only a few copies of the original printing survived; hence its scarcity"). Howes S517. Howard Roberts Lamar, Charlie Siringo's West, pp. 289 and 300. Peavy, pp. 22-26 ("it is amazing how much information Siringo crammed into the first edition of Riata and Spurs"). Six-Guns 2030 ("very scarce").
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