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Rollo, The Boy Ranger; or, The Heiress of the Golden Horn. By Oll Coomes, Frank Starr & Co., Publishers, New York, 1871, 90 pp, pictorial paper wrappers, 6.5 x 4.25 , 18mo. In fair condition. Fragile, but quite normal given that these were cheaply printed. Cover is torn with loss at top left corner. Heavy chipping and large tear to cover at right edge. Chipped overall. String sewn binding is fraying with loose strand. Light soiling to surface of covers. Front fly is lacking half of its top margin. Old hand ownership of Mrs. S.E. Ellison on title. Tear to title with chipping and fingersoiling. Lightly toned throughout, as to be expected. Mrs. Sarah E. Elision has signed the rear fly as well please return . Rear cover is tearing at binding. Some light age staining to rear cover. In three signatures, which are all loosened from the binding. Please see photos. Beadle & Co. had purchased the stereotype plates, stock, etc., of Irwin P. Beadle's American Novels (Irwin's American Novels), and had decided to reissue seventeen of them in new covers, beginning their own series with No. 18 (February, 1869) under the imprint of Frank Starr & Co., 41 Platt Street, New York. The lower numbers of the new run are very similar in size and appearance to Irwin's American Novels, which they supplanted. They are 6 1/2 by 4 1/4 inches in size and have about 100 pages, but the wrappers, instead of being of various colors as are Irwin's, are all yellowish or yellowish-buff. The heading of the series is very similar to its predecessor, but a five-pointed star replaces Cooper's picture. There is a black woodcut on the front wrapper but no frontispiece or other illustration. At the upper right corner is the price. Ten Cents. Inside the front wrapper the forthcoming number was announced, and both back pages were devoted to advertisements of other publications of Frank Starr & Co. Oliver Oll Coomes (1845 - 1924) was born in the Ohio countryside in 1845. Eleven years later, he moved with his family to a farm near Colfax, Iowa, where he attended school and learned the pottery trade from his father. His earliest publications were poems that appeared in the local Newton, Iowa newspaper. He attended Iowa College (now called Grinnell College) for one year before financial issues forced him to leave in 1866. In 1867 he married Adelia A. Kellogg, sister of William Pitt Kellogg, who was the Republican governor of Louisiana during the Reconstruction. They soon bought a farm, and in 1877 he began the first of two terms as representative in the Iowa State Legislature, serving as a Republican at a time when the party was abandoning its Reconstruction-era commitment to civil rights in the South. Coomes found time, when not farming or legislating, to write numerous popular dime novels. In a Resolution honoring his life passed by the Iowa House in 1923, Ironsides, The Scout; Hawkeye Harry, The Young Trapper Ranger; Death-Notch, The Destroyer; The Dumb Spy; and his many Kit Bandy books were highlighted as his most popular works. The pseudonym Will Dexter was used on a handful of stories, but these were all eventually reprinted under his usual Oll Coomes by-line. RAREA1871AJKR - 10/23 FORN-TUB-0067-BB-2502-HKREV489.
Seller Inventory # FORN-TUB-0067-BB-2502-HKREV489
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