Author: FIELD, Eugene
Title: The Holy Cross and Other Tales
Description: Cambridge and Chicago, Stone & Kimball, 1893. Hardcover. Small 8vo. Full calf with gilt rules, raised bands, ornate gilt spine lettering and decorations, inner dentelles, quarter navy blue calf slipcase with gilt spine lettering. vi, 191pp. Top edge gilt. Good plus/very good. Spine chipped at head and tail and both hinges delicate but handleable, showing old archival strengthening; internally quite tight and bright; slipcase a tad edgeworn, with nice calf and bright titling. Large paper edition, with title page in green and red and front colophon noting limitation of 110 numbered copies (this #65) signed by firm as "Stone & Kimball." A custom-bound example of this wide-margined story collection, with a statement from the poet's ne'er-do-well son Eugene "Pinny" Field II penned in his trademark green ink on a rear flyleaf: "This was my father's own / copy of 'The Holy Cross' -- / Eugene Field II / Sept 2 -- 1923" -- sometimes true and often not (as discussed in William L. Butts' 2001 study "Absolutely, Mister Sickles? Positively, Mister Field! New Light on the Eugene "Pinny" Field II and Harry Dayton Sickles Forgery Case"). Of greatest interest is an Autograph Manuscript (unsigned) from poet Field tipped to front flyleaf: 1p, 5¼" X 8¼", n.p. n.y. Very good. Single horizontal fold. In his incredibly tiny but highly legible script, Field titles this "Chipeta" and writes out six 4-line stanzas from this seven stanza poem in which he celebrates the real life Native American woman Chipeta (1834/44-1924), wife of Chief Ouray of the Uncompahgre Ute tribe of Colorado who after his death in 1880 used tact and diplomacy to mediate between her people and the whites. Whether Field omitted the penultimate stanza intentionally or by accident is not known -- nor why he penned this example, for not being signed it clearly was not penned for an admirer. Perhaps it represents an early state of the poem and the absent stanza was added later; so too there are a number of minor word differences between this and other published versions of the finished poem. Whatever the case, Field's son pens a note on the bottom of this piece, again in green ink: "This is the handwriting of / my father Eugene Field / Eugene Field II / May 8, 1919." On the front pastedown is a reprint of the poet's bookplate, apparently done by his son to help market the poet's books. The Field study cited likewise addresses the son's statements in books by his father and the reprinted bookplate -- and the authentic Field manuscripts sometimes tipped into the books, of which this is a choice example. Despite the delicate hinges, this is an attractive example of this large paper edition bearing an intriguing Field holograph poem. .

Keywords: American Literature


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