THE COUNTRY BOY. New York, Chicago, Toronto, London and Edinburgh: Fleming H. Revell Company, [1903]. Octavo, fifteen inserted plates plus extra title with illustrations by Griselda Marshall McClure, publisher's pictorial straw cloth stamped in green, blue, black and white, fore and bottom edges untrimmed. First edition, first printing. A fine association copy, inscribed by Crissey to Pulitzer prize-winning American newspaper cartoonist John T. McCutcheon on the half title page: "To John T. McCutcheon: / Whose Boy in Springtime pictures / are the closest portraits of the / real Country Boy ever put on / paper. Here's to the Pirates -- / May their raft never sink! / With the good wishes of / Forrest Crissy / Chicago / Oct 9-03." Connected sketches of rural American life in the 1890s first published in THE SATURDAY EVENING POST, WOMAN'S HOME COMPANION and CHICAGO EVENING POST, first collected in book form in 1903 (not 1897, an erroneous date cited by many authorities since at least the 1940s). Forrest Crissey (1864-1943) was a writer and Chicago journalist born in Stockton, NY. John Tinney McCutcheon (1870-1949) became known even before his death as the "Dean of American Cartoonists" Best known for his political cartoons, McCutcheon was also highly regarded for his folksy cartoons of rural life at the fictional town of Bird Center. In 1903 McCutcheon moved to the CHICAGO TRIBUNE where he remained until his retirement in 1946. Carey Orr, a McCutcheon successor as editorial cartoonist at the TRIBUNE called him "the father of the human-interest cartoon." Syndicated columnist O. O. McIntyre once wrote of McCutcheon: "No cartoonist of his or any other time has so influenced public thought and clarified it for better thinking about affairs at home and abroad." Among his most famous cartoons were the 1931 Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoon, "A Wise Economist Asks a Question" and "The Colors," a cartoon published during World War II. Smith, American Fiction, 1901-1925 C-932. A clean, bright, very good or better copy. (#177737).
Price: $250.00
"September" on copyright page.