[Sales Promotion and Prospectus] The Autograph Edition of the Novels and stories of Willa Cather. The First Collected Edition Revised by the Author and Limited to 970 Copies of which 950 Numbered Copies Are for Sale

Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. Printer: The Riverside Press, 1937. Cloth. Near Fine. A fantastic group of four pieces of publishing ephemera, all related to the promotion and sale of the first complete set of Willa Cather's works, while she was still alive and active but virtually all of her major works had been published. The most charismatic piece of the group is a dummy book of "O Pioneers!", which was to be the first volume of the 13 volume set. Besides this "book", the package of promotional materials includes the prospectus, a booklet of which we have two copies, and a cover letter for this.which resembles a formal invitation printed on a double folded sheet, similar to a formal invitation to a wedding or other event. The prospectus, in addition to listing the components of the set, provides biographies of Cather and of Bruce Rogers, the designer of the set. The dummy volume of "O Pioneers" is 8vo., 23 by 16 cm, cream cloth on the spine, blue cloth on the boards, with a stylized Cather monogram impressed as a centerpiece on the front and rear cover. It replicated how the novel will appear in the actual set up to the sixth page of the novel, after which the volume is filled with blank sheets -- we haven't counted the blanks, but the volume looks like a 250 page to conform with how the volume will look when the full novel is contained within. So the dummy includes in the front the title page for the set (which will be in each of the volumes), the verso of which has the limitation page, a frontis engraved portrait of Cather, the title page, the copyright page, the dedication page, a poem, a Contents page, and finally the beginning of the first chapter, "The Wild Land". The cover letter for the Prospectus, when opened, is 21.5 by 17 cm. The Prospectus itself is eight leaves, including its cover, and its size paper is the same as that of the dummy volume. Its pagination doesn't relate to itself but to the extracts from the set. It includes a facsimile of the title page for "The Song of the Lark" and also a facsimile of an one page Cather manuscript. Cather lived another decade, until 1947, after the publication of this prestigious set of her works. She was still to publish "Sapphire and the Slave Girl", which came out in 1940, but as we already indicated, her most famous and beloved works are in this set. Condition-wise, the dummy volume ha light edgewear, with a touch of fraying by the spine tips. One of our two Prospectuses is in Fine condition, the other, a modicum of foxing and other soiling on its cover. (Inventory #: 20442)