"THE ILLUSTRATIONS BY WYETH ARE SOMETHING TO CHEER ABOUT": FIRST EDITION OF THE BRANDYWINE, 1941, ONE OF ONLY 650 COPIES SIGNED BY HENRY CANBY AND ANDREW WYETH

(WYETH, Andrew) CANBY, Henry Seidel. The Brandywine. Illustrated by Andrew Wyeth. New York, Toronto: Farrar & Rinehart, 1941. Octavo, original tan cloth, pictorial endpapers, original dust jacket.

First edition, Delaware edition, number 588 of only 650 copies signed on a tipped-in leaf by author Canby and Andrew Wyeth, with dust jacket illustration, pictorial endpapers, four double-page and many in-text illustrations from original drawings by Wyeth of "his beloved Brandywine."

"Wyeth's technical brilliance and the conceptual complexity" of his work have made him "a force on the national, and now international, art scene" (Padon & Rorschach, Foreword, Andrew Wyeth, 6). Yet he remained inspired throughout his life by the region where he grew up—"his beloved Brandywine." Wyeth's grandaughter would recall that the Battle of the Brandywine especially colored "his imagination… He would point out ancient buttonwoods to her and exclaim, 'This tree once had British troops lying bloodied against it! Think what it's experienced and what it's seen!'" (Maynard, Brandywine, 205). Wyeth's highly detailed illustrations in The Brandywine are enriched by Canby's "comprehensive and deeply personal narrative of the river's history and meaning" (Langlieb, Explorer's Guide, 204). "No one could have written of the Brandywine but Canby, for he was born on the hill where Washington's army camped before they moved toward the Battle of the Brandywine" (Harper's). "It is not too much to say that The Brandywine is the most intimately charming of the Rivers of America series. And the illustrations by Andrew Wyeth are something to cheer about" (Herald Tribune). "Launched in 1937, Rivers of America achieved legendary status as one of the noblest endeavors in 20th-century publishing history." Its handsome volumes were authored by Canby, and each work featured illustrations by renowned artists such as Andrew Wyeth (Maynard, 158). Limitation page with: "This special Delaware edition… is printed exclusively for the Greenwood Books Shop."

Book fine; light edge-wear, faint soiling to near-fine dust jacket.