Managed to find a first edition of Bruce Catton's Banners at Shenandoah book, and it arrived in the mail today. Interesting just from the cover. Here's the best online pic -- Banners cover -- but it looks different from the package unwrapped today with such anticipation. The one in possession has a dust jacket with a full color cover illustration, and it is a "Cavalcade Books" item by Doubleday. Back flap says "Cavalcade Books is a new series of original works of fiction written for the younger generation by authors of established reputation. Each volume will portray the colorful people or outstanding events in some particular century through the medium of an exciting story." Inside back flap lists five that had been published including one on Lexington and Concord and another on Mark Twain, with forthcoming titles devoted to Hercules and other stories.
The inside front flap says "Here is the first novel from the pen of Bruce Catton, whose A Stillness at Appomattox won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for 1954." Isn't it, as it turns out, the only novel from his pen? This hardbound book has an illustration on both front and back inside covers along with a map of the U.S. showing what must be the sites in the story, including "Pine Bay" and Grand Rapids in MI (the first is a fictitious location appearing to be near Holland MI, and GR is located more in the vicinity of Kalamazoo or even Paw Paw! Ah, those New York illustrators...)
Oh, it does smell a bit musty.
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