RILEY, JAMES WHITCOMB.

The Old Swimmin'-Hole and 'leven more poems. Neighborly poems on friendship, grief, and farm-life by Benj. F. Johnson of Boone [James Whitcomb Riley.].

Indianapolis: Bowen-Merrill, 1891. First edition, first printing, BAL's binding B; small 8vo, pp. ix, [5], 90; 6 plates (2 in color) and 1 full-p. illus. by Will Vawter; t.e.g, orig. maroon and tan cloth, gilt-lettered on spine and upper cover; extremities rubbed, title-p. loosening; all else good and sound; 1/4 red morocco slipcase. This copy signed on the title-p. "James Whitcomb Riley" and with a presentation on the front free endpaper "To Eugene Field, with hale Hoosier greetings James Whitcomb Riley," with the drawing of a naked boy on a river bank just above the inscription; additionally, the title-p. is also signed "Eugene Field, Chicago, Sept. 14, 1895" [3 days prior to the earliest presentation noted by BAL, and less than 2 months before Field died]. Laid in is a letter to a woman in St. Paul from Eugene Field, Jr. stating "This signed copy of "Neighborly Poems" bearing the signatures of James Whitcomb Riley and Eugene Field, my father, courses direct from the Eugene Field estate." The letter is certainly original; the rest rather likely forgeries of Henry Dayton Sickles. BAL 16576. Item #22158

Price: $375.00