Auction Name: 2026 June 19 The John H. Freund Americana Collection Signature® Auction

Lot Number: 42182

Shortcut to Lot: HA.com/6331*42182

Theodore Roosevelt Document Signed ("Theodore Roosevelt"). Two partially printed pages, 8 x 12 inches; New York; March 12, 1894. With manuscript emendations in ink throughout.

Memorandum of Agreement between Theodore Roosevelt and G.P. Putnam's Sons for the publication of The Wilderness Hunter, stipulating, in part:

"Said G. P. Putnam's Sons...agree to publish said work at their own expense...and to pay said Roosevelt or his legal representatives, ten per cent on their Trade-List (retail) price, cloth style (regular edition), or on the paper style for copies sold in paper covers, for all copies of said work sold by them after the sale of fifteen hundred copies, the sale of this number of copies being considered necessary to return the original outlay of the publishers."

A manuscript side note is included in the margins, in full: "It is further agreed that when as many as five thousand copies of said work have been sold in regular course, said Petersons shall pay to said Roosevelt a royalty of ten per cent on the retail price of the first fifteen hundred copies sold." Signed by "Theodore Roosevelt" and "G.P. Putnam's Sons" and their witnesses on the final leaf.

Having already established himself as a serious historical author, with the publication and positive public reception of The Naval War of 1812 (1882) and The Winning of the West (1889-1896), the publication of The Wilderness Hunter (full title: The Wilderness Hunter: An Account of the Big Game of the United States and Its Chase with Horse, Hound and Rifle) in 1893 marked a shift in Roosevelt's writing focus to wildlife and big game hunting, inspired largely by his retreat to the Dakota Territory following the deaths of his mother and wife in 1884. The initial publication in trade cloth binding was sumptuously illustrated by popular artists including Frederic Remington, A.B. Frost, James Carter Beard, Henry Sandham, and Charles Henry Eaton, and was followed by an edition de luxe, limited to 200 copies, also published by Putnam, each signed by the former President.

Condition: Fine. Flattened folds. Lightly toned on the verso of the last page, with some scattered wrinkles.

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