The Song of Hiawatha by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth - 1911

Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1911. First edition thus. Hardcover. Near Fine. Large 8vo. [3], iv-vii, [2], 2-242, [2] pp. Orange cloth with a pictorial inset of Hiawatha firing an arrow, spine lettered in gold; top edge gilt. Illustrated by a frontispiece, numerous in-text designs, and twenty-two plates. Remington did the in-text illustrations and the plates, Wyeth completed the frontispiece of Hiawatha fishing, and Parrish created the inset cover illustration. ANB, Cornelius J. Jaenen, "Hiawatha". Allen 211. Encyclopedia Britannica, "Hiawatha". Frederic Remington was a prolific illustrator of Western Americana and frequently drew scenes of Native American life. Wyeth and Parrish are giants of turn-of-the-century book and magazine illustration, with bright, and tender depictions of humans, human adventures, and the natural world. Longfellow's fictionalized epic poem of the Onondaga leader, Hiawatha. The legends concerning Hiawatha depict him as the impetus for the Iroquois Confederacy. Hiawatha is remembered as a brave warrior and a great orator. He spoke on behalf of Deganawidah, in order to form a peace between the Five Nations of what would be the Iroquois Confederacy. Longfellow's poem was written in the metre of the Finnish epic the Kalevala, and was immensely successful in its day. The first edition of Wyeth, Remington, and Parrish's Hiawatha, and a beautiful copy. A Near Fine book with just a touch of wear to the extremities and a contemporary Christmas gift inscription on the first blank leaf.