Centennial [FIRST EDITION, FIRST PRINTING]

Michener, James A.

Published by Random House, New York, 1974

Fine condition maroon cloth boards with gold front cover decoration and gold spine lettering contained in a very good condition non price-clipped photographic and color illustrated dust jacket. Includes List of Other Books by James A. Michener; Acknowledgments; Dedication; and Preliminary Page Author Note. Illustrated with black-and-white maps and color illustrated front and rear endpaper maps. Some upper jacket spine edge creasing and a few scattered tiny closed tears (see photographs). All pages are in fine unmarked condition and the spine/binding is exceedingly tight and square (see photographs). "As did its eminent predecessors Hawaii and The Source, Centennial deals with its scene - the North American west, especially Colorado - from prehistory to the present. Long before man, the animals inhabited the land, and these are the first characters to appear, beginning with diplodocus, 160 million years ago. She is followed by members of families whose descendants are important to the rest of the story: the horse, the buffalo, the beaver and the rattlesnake. Then, perhaps 12,000 years ago, the latecomer arrives, and the first man presented is an artist in the fashioning of flint projectile points. The novel is based solidly on the facts of history and is an illuminating account of the development of this country, and of the immigrants from many nations who came to the west and drove the Indians out. The story is one of people - people involved in dramatic events and conflicts: Indians, trappers, traders, adventurers, explorers, gold-seekers, ranchers, cowboys, homesteaders, farmers, hunters, speculators. The first main character is the heroic Arapaho, Lame Beaver, born in 1747, whose tribe has never seen a man with white skin until Lame Beaver encounters Pasquinel. This French trader-trapper adds Lame Beaver's daughter to his numerous wives and produces half-breed sons who harass the immigrants moving west along the Oregon Trail. Of these, the most notable are Levi and Elly Zendt, who start their perilous journey in Lancaster, Pennsyvania, and Oliver Seccombe, the Englishman who puts together a ranch of over 5,000,000 acres. To stock this enormous enterprise, huge herds of cattle are driven west and north by intrepid cowboys, and with the first drive comes the Texas boy Jim Lloyd, who stays in Colorado and prospers. Then there are Frank Skimmerhorn, the Indian hater; Mervin Wendell, actor and confidence man turned real estate operator; "Potato" Brumbaugh, the German from Russia, who learns how to make the land fruitful; Messmore Garrett, who dares to invade cattle country with sheep; the Grebe family, who struggle to tame the drylands. These are but a few of the more than seventy memorable chief characters of Centennial, most of them is some way trlated to the man who dominates the final section - Paul Garrett, rancher and econlogist, who loves the granddaughter of the Mixican sugar-beet worker Tranquilino Marquez. As the story ends, Garrett and other thoughtful men are trying to find ways to repair the damage done to their land by the headlong industriousness of their predecessors." - from the inner front and rear jacket flaps. Seller Inventory # 007575

Bibliographic Details

Title: Centennial [FIRST EDITION, FIRST PRINTING]
Publisher: Random House, New York
Publication Date: 1974
Binding: Hardcover
Condition: Fine
Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good
Edition: 1st Edition