About this Item
This jacketed first edition, later printing of the children s classic and enduring staple of adolescent school curriculum is inscribed, signed, and dated by the author. The inscription inked in four lines on the front free endpaper recto reads "3-2-77 | To - Sarah Williams | Sincerely, | Wilson Rawls".In binding, dust jacket design, and content, this copy is nearly identical to the first printing. The book itself differs only in omission of the "1961" date at the foot of the title page and omission of "First Edition" at the foot of the title page verso. We can speculate with confidence that this reprint of the first edition was issued between 1968 and early 1977. Presence of an ISBN number on the rear flap of the dust jacket indicates 1968 or later; the US introduced the ISBN system in 1968. An additional indicator of later, but still early, printing is the "$4.95" price on the front dust jacket flap rather than the "$3.95" of the first printing. The author s own inscription informs us that the book must have been printed before 2 March 1977.Condition approaches very good plus in a very good dust jacket. The brick red binding is square, tight, clean, and unfaded, with sharp corners and only minor shelfwear to the extremities. The contents remain bright, and the sole previous ownership mark is the author s inscription. Modest spotting appears confined to the text-block edges and the front endpapers primarily at the pastedown gutter. The illustrated dust-jacket is highly complete with only fractional loss at the spine ends and flap-fold corners. Light soiling is primarily confined to the white rear face. The jacket spine shows modest, uniform toning and a closed tear at the spine heel extending .75 inches up from the bottom of the front joint, and another .75 inches horizontally above the publisher s printed name. The tears are unobtrusive beneath the jacket s clear, removable, archival cover.Wilson Rawls (1913-1984) was born and raised in Oklahoma and came of age during the Great Depression. His own privations included lack of formal education; Rawls was taught to read by his mother alongside his sisters with books supplied by their grandmother. After departing from his home in Oklahoma, Rawls picked up jobs from Mexico to Alaska, building dams, working in shipyards, and at some point working for the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). While working for the AEC in Idaho he met Sophie Ann Styczinski, whom he married in 1958. Rawls's inclination to storytelling was fed by his varied employment experience, and it was as a speaker and storyteller that he eventually prospered after publication of his two books, Where the Red Fern Grows, and The Summer of the Monkeys.Rawls wrote, but with a lack of confidence that led him to destroy his own manuscripts. His wife Sophie would later convince him to write from the destroyed manuscripts Where the Red Fern Grows, which was published in 1961, first in a Saturday Evening Post series and later that year in novel form. This story details the life of young Billy Coleman, who works hard to buy two coonhounds for companionship and hunting, both of whom poignantly die and are interred between the titular red fern. Both Where the Red Fern Grows and Rawls s second and final novel, The Summer of the Monkeys (1976), drew on the author s formative rural adolescence in eastern Oklahoma. After publishing both novels, Rawls became a sought-after inspirational speaker to young people in schools across the nation. It was early during this phase of his life that he inscribed this book. His most famous speech was titled aptly, even if a bit on the nose, "Dreams Can Come True." This title would become his epitaph.
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