ONE OF 950 COPIES PRINTED BY EUGENE CONNETT AT THE FAMOUS DERRYDALE PRESS

SMITH, Edmund Ware. Tall Tales and Short. New York: Derrydale Press, (1938). Octavo, original gilt-stamped pictorial green cloth. $250.

Limited Derrydale Press first edition of this collection of stories set in Maine and featuring hunters, fishermen, and other sportsmen, number 277 of 950 copies printed by Eugene V. Connett at the Derrydale Press, with illustrations by Milton C. Weiler, in original cloth-gilt.

"In a time when magazines and newspapers played a dominant role in American life and culture, Smith was one of the iconic writers who brought the beauty, serenity and majesty of the Maine woods, as well as the uniqueness of its inhabitants, to the minds of readers across the country" (Outdoor Sporting Library). This book was printed at the famed Derrydale Press by its founder Eugene Connett. After studying the typography of Daniel Berkeley Updike, avid sportsman Connett founded the Derrydale Press, with the intent "to reprint the very scarce early American books on sport which had become so rare that some of them would never be seen outside of a few private collections… and to produce a group of books on contemporary American sport which, because of their beauty, would be preserved." Owner signature, dated 1938, of Elisabeth "Pansy" Ireland, owner of Pebble Hill Plantation in Georgia and an accomplished horsewoman and collector. Contemporary pencil notation.

A fine copy.