N. Howard Thorp
Estancia News Shop, Estancia, NM, 1908
First edition, original red cloth, 50 pp.
Height 6.5 in, Width 4 in
Provenance: Private collection, Las Vegas, NM
$1,850.00
This first edition of Songs of the Cowboys by N. Howard Thorp, published by the Estancia News Shop in New Mexico in 1908, is the first book ever devoted exclusively to cowboy songs, a foundational document of American folk music history and Western Americana collecting. For nineteen years rancher Jack Thorp sought out cowboy songs, ballads, and poems from Texas to Utah, and in 1908 he convinced P.A. Speckmann at the Estancia News Shop to print 2,000 copies at six cents each. The finished booklet contained 23 songs including Little Joe the Wrangler, Windy Bill, The Tenderfoot, Top Hand, Little Adobe Casa, Grand Round-up, Texas Cowboy, Mustang Gray, Sam Bass, Bucking Bronco, The Pecos Stream, and Mark Chisholm, among others.
The book is presented in its original red cloth with title, author's name, and drawing stamped on the front cover, in the condition consistent with a working copy from 1908 that has been carefully preserved. The Las Vegas, New Mexico provenance keeps this copy within the geographic and cultural world that produced it. As the first serious attempt to collect and preserve cowboy song traditions, this volume holds a place in American musical and literary history that far exceeds its modest physical scale.
We ship free anywhere in the world, fully insured, packed by hand.
N. Howard Thorp
Estancia News Shop, Estancia, NM, 1908
First edition, original red cloth, 50 pp.
Height 6.5 in, Width 4 in
Provenance: Private collection, Las Vegas, NM
$1,850.00
This first edition of Songs of the Cowboys by N. Howard Thorp, published by the Estancia News Shop in New Mexico in 1908, is the first book ever devoted exclusively to cowboy songs, a foundational document of American folk music history and Western Americana collecting. For nineteen years rancher Jack Thorp sought out cowboy songs, ballads, and poems from Texas to Utah, and in 1908 he convinced P.A. Speckmann at the Estancia News Shop to print 2,000 copies at six cents each. The finished booklet contained 23 songs including Little Joe the Wrangler, Windy Bill, The Tenderfoot, Top Hand, Little Adobe Casa, Grand Round-up, Texas Cowboy, Mustang Gray, Sam Bass, Bucking Bronco, The Pecos Stream, and Mark Chisholm, among others.
The book is presented in its original red cloth with title, author's name, and drawing stamped on the front cover, in the condition consistent with a working copy from 1908 that has been carefully preserved. The Las Vegas, New Mexico provenance keeps this copy within the geographic and cultural world that produced it. As the first serious attempt to collect and preserve cowboy song traditions, this volume holds a place in American musical and literary history that far exceeds its modest physical scale.
We ship free anywhere in the world, fully insured, packed by hand.
