Jessamyn West (Boise State University Western Writers Series)

Boise State Univ. Good. 1982 inscribed and signed first edition, Boise State University (Boise, Idaho), 5 1/2 x 8 inches tall stapled paperbound in pale green printed covers, 51 pp. Slight rubbing and sun fading to covers. Nicely inscribed and signed by the author on the title page. Otherwise, a very good copy - clean, bright and unmarked copy of this profile of American author of short stories and novels Mary Jessamyn West (1902 - 1984). ~SP41~ A Quaker from Indiana, Jessamyn West graduated from Whittier College in 1923. She is probably best known for her 1945 book The Friendly Persuasion, adapted into a motion picture by the same name in 1956. The book consists of 14 vignettes about a Quaker farming family, the Birdwells, living near the town of Vernon in southern Indiana along 'the banks of the Muscatatuck, where once the woods stretched, dark row on row.' West gained the background material for her stories while recuperating at home from a nearly fatal bout with tuberculosis in the early 1930s. Having gone home to die, West improbably recovered and her mother, Grace Milhous West, shared with her during the recovery childhood memories of growing up as a Quaker girl in southern Indiana, and particularly of grandparents Joshua and Elizabeth Milhous, who became the models for the Birdwells.