The Overland Trail

Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1947. Hardcover. 8vo. Red cloth. 431pp. Frontispiece, illustrations, 4 maps, map endpapers. Very good. A tight and handsome first edition of this second title in the original "American Trails Series" (which consisted of only three titles in 1947 and 1948, with McGraw-Hill resuming the series in 1962). Choice autograph addition: Tipped to the inner flyleaf is a Typed Note Signed from Monaghan, 1p, 8½" X 11", Springfield, IL, 18 June 1946. Addressed to Ralph Newman (1912-98). Very good. Mild original folds. On letterhead of "Illinois State Historical Library" citing Monaghan as "State Historian," he writes the founder of Chicago's famed Abraham Lincoln Book Shop. The noted Lincoln biographer thanks the noted Lincoln bookseller to an event honoring another Lincoln scholar: "I thank you for the invitation to attend the dinner at the University Club of Chicago to be given for Paul Angle...." Boldly signed in black ink. Monaghan (1891-1980) was a popular historian, remembered primarily for his mammoth 2-volume "Lincoln Bibliography" (1943-45).