Birds of the Bible (association copy)

Cincinnati: Jennings & Graham, 1909. First edition. Hardcover. Good. Association copy, inscribed in a handsome black cursive in the year of publication to her sister-in-law: "For Sarah Stratton, 'He shall cover thou with His feathers and under His wings shall thou Trust.' Gene Stratton-Porter, Limberlost Cabin, November nineteenth, Nineteen hundred nine." Sarah E. Stratton (nee Fitch) was the wife of Gene Stratton-Porter's older brother Irvin Franklin Stratton, a lawyer. He died in 1902 in California in an accident, but clearly Sarah and Gene remained close--this book was signed on a visit to Stratton-Porter's famed Limberlost Cabin in Geneva, Indiana, near the Limberlost Swamp that was her inspiration for both novels (A Girl from Limberlost was her most successful book and remains her best known) and her nonfiction. She also was an accomplished and pioneering photographer of nature, training her camera especially on Limberlost Swamp, and Birds of the Bible includes 80 of her black-and-white photographs mixed in with photographs from others. Birds in the Bible, her third nonfiction book, part field guide, part literary criticism, is a fascinating production in that it captures a naturalist and an era as they wrestle with the tension between religion and science, and in the book Gene Stratton-Porter constantly compares biblical text with with scientific "fact," working out consistencies and inconsistencies. The book begins with several large synthesizing chapters and then explores individual birds named in the bible--the dove, the eagle, the sparrow, the ostrich, etc.--ultimately running to 451 pages. It has the feel of a bible, especially because of its heavy glossy stock that is right for the photos. The printed cover cloth shows a hoopoe peeking out of a nest cavity, the title and byline in gold on corrugated bark. Gold topstain, sepia frontispiece protected by tissue paper. Endpapers illustrated with a photograph of owlets that is probably one of Stratton-Porter's own. A good only book with the front hinge starting, but holding firm, and a one-inch split to cloth along front joint. Wear and slight loss to spine ends, rubbing to corners. Nonetheless a rare family association copy. Stratton-Porter's bibliographer writes that she did not sign many books because she was "jealous of her privacy" and the market seems to bear that out. Stratton-Porter remains one of the premiere American women writing about the environment and she influenced later generations profoundly, including writers like Annie Dillard and Ann Zwinger who have both cited A Girl of the Limberlost as an important early influence. There's this amazing fact from a Smithsonian article: "Only 55 books published between 1895 and 1945 sold upwards of one million copies. Gene Stratton-Porter wrote five of those books." She worked out a deal with Doubleday in 1910 in which she could alternate the submission of a romance novel and a nonfiction book every year--her commitment to nonfiction, though it sold meagerly by comparison, is notable. In addition to her huge hand in nature education, she also was an activist: Her first published article, in 1900, was against the millinery trade, the use of plumes in fashion, and after Limberlost Swamp was largely drained and cut for timber (she moved away, it upset her so much),  she continued to write about the issue of wetland and lake drainage nationally.