[TEXAS] Johnson, M.L. [Marshall Lafayette]

Intensely Interesting. A True History of Struggles with Hostile Indians on the Frontier of Texas in the Early Days, Never Before Published in a Book [Cover Title]

Dallas, TX: 1923.

First Edition. 7"x 4.75", 30 pp, with frontis portrait of the author, in original wrappers. Roughly and unevenly trimmed by printer, creased at one corner, otherwise very good. Rare first edition of this privately printed cowboy memoir, of which a second edition with 8 additional pages was published in the same year. In an interview published in the Dallas Morning News on December 29, 1922, the author said: “In 1867, I went out West to Weatherford, Parker County, to defend my country against the hostile Comanche and Kiowa Indians, and incidentally, to engage in the cattle business, and I am, at this very moment, publishing a book, giving a description of the many encounters I had with them, and the hardships early settlers had to endure on the frontier of Texas." The book includes considerable description of working on the enormous John Hittson Ranch -- including buffalo hunts, round-ups, and Indian raids--and an account of the Battle of Wounded Knee (to which he was an eyewitness, but not a direct participant). Herd (1179) gives a slightly different title, suggesting there may be two variants of the first edition. Not in Howes or Graff, mentioned in the note to Rader 2095 (a 1935 expanded edition published by the author's son under the title Trail Blazing; A True Story of the Struggles with Hostile Indians on the frontier of Texas").

Item #22598

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