The Village Magazine

Springfield: Jeffersons Printing Company, 1925. Paperback. 4to. Stiff red wrappers with extensive black and white lettering and decorations. x, 169pp. Numerous line drawings. Very good. Faint binding wear only (mainly spine head/tail), else remarkably tight and fresh and internally fine. Handsome "Fourth Imprint" of this hefty assortment of the troubador poet's verse, many of them also illustrated by him as he was once an art student in Chicago and New York, pen and ink being his specialty. This fourth printing he notes on contents page is limited to "eight hundred copies" which he hopes "to last until January first, 1926, so please, I most earnestly beg, remember the letter that asks for a copy of the present imprint must certify that the person who wants the book is indeed and intimate and patient friend of mine...." The first edition (76pp) was published in 1910 limited to 700 copies, the second edition (128pp) in 1920 limited to 1000 copies, the third edition (168pp) in 1925 limited to 200 copies -- and what Lindsay terms the "Fourth Imprint" is actually a second printing of the third edition (169pp), having a new red wrapper and new table of contents and preceding 3/4ths leaf. Each edition is enlarged significantly over the previous edition, thus this fourth printing is the largest in content of them all. This title is often found in library binding or in tatters, making this bright example of the final edition in original wrappers exceptionally scarce.