Life and Adventures of William Filley, who was Stolen from His Home in Jackson, Michigan, by the Indians, August 3d, 1837, and his Safe Return from Captivity, October 19, 1866, After an Absence of 29 Years.
Chicago: George H. Fergus, Book and Job Printer, 1867. First edition. Original printed pictorial wrappers, 8.63 x 5.5 inches, 96 pages. Eight inserted plates. Front wrapper worn, with some loss to the upper edge; lacks rear wrapper; worn, with some light staining and some heavier soiling and wear to the final leaf; a good, sound copy in a custom folding cloth case. Item #18541
The uncommon first edition of this popular Indian captivity (the 112-page second edition was issued the same year), a Jackson boy abducted by an unnamed tribe in 1837 who then evidently bounces in a sort of naive picaresque from the Sioux to the Crow to the Comanches, etc. (some 17 in all, to judge from this account), traveling through the Rockies and with stops in Gold Rush California along the way. The editor James Z. Ballard, the brother-in-law to Filley’s father appears to have been in the real estate business in Jackson County; he includes much here to attest to the veracity of this account, to which his name appears on the front wrapper with Filley as one of two publishers. Greenly 33 (which gives an even-handed summary of Filley’s account); see Ayer, Indian Captivities, 98 & Ante-Fire Imprints 1189 (each noting only the second edition). Upper inch or so of the upper edges of the title page and second leaf restored.
Price: $950.00