Thirty-seven Days of Peril: A narrative of the early days of the Yellowstone

58 pp. Octavo, parchment over cardboard, brown front and back panels with brown cloth spine with black imprint. No dust jacket issued. Printed on handmade paper by Edwin & Robert Grabhorn and James McDonald. Illustrated with decorations by Joseph Sinel. A Narrative of the Early Days of the Yellowstone. Everts was one of the prominent citizens of Montana who made up the 1870 Washburn Expedition, the first large-scale investigation of the then much-storied but largely unexplored Yellowstone region. After becoming separated from the rest of his party, Everts survived for 37 days in the wilds, with little or nothing in the way of equipment or wilderness experience. Apparently suffering no permanent ill effects, in later years he showed little gratitude toward his rescuers, married a fourteen year old girl when he was in his mid-sixties, and lived to the ripe old age of 85. His tale of survival first appeared in Scribner’s Monthly in 1871. Although Everts’ story is now a significant piece of the Yellowstone literature, this book was not a big success for the Grabhorn brothers, who were in 1923 still relative upstarts recently arrived in San Francisco. As a result, it is found in a variety of binding styles, sometimes with, and often without (as here) a frontispiece. To insure confusion, an edition of 500 copies on machine made paper was issued contemporaneously with the smaller edition on handmade paper, of which this copy is a part. Near Fine Condition. Grabhorn Press, San Francisco, 1923. Limited edition numbered 18/375. First Edition. $275.