The Trusty Knaves

EUGENE MANLOVE RHODES

Publication: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1933, Boston and New York

First edition, first state. 8vo. Tan cloth, titles in maroon ink on front cover and spine, i-xviii [2] 3-238 pp. Inscribed copy with the scarce dust jacket and publisher’s errata sheet!

Written by one of the greatest Western authors of all time, the novel revolves around a plot by the town Marshall, Sheriff, and other forces of law to rob the bank of Target. But a few ‘trusty knaves’ with past experience in such ventures happen to drift into town and match wits to thwart the nefarious enterprise. Witty, fast moving, with a dash of realism. J. Frank Dobie praised Rhodes's artistry, and Bernard DeVoto thought he wrote "much the best dialogue . . . Of western characters since Mark Twain."

Inscribed on the front free endpaper by Rhodes with a quotation from one of his earlier tales to Sacramento bookseller Edward H. Crussell [1875-1943]. “For E. H. Crussell, the sailor man / in trust for Ernest E. Crussell / “He took the moon and spun it on the table / Then laughed ‘This coin is counterfeit’, he said / Its lustre is a legend and a fable / of old by the tongues of the untruthful dead.” With a cut signature. [On the verso, Crussell writes in ink that when he was visiting Rhodes, he thought it “would be a neat trick” to present the author with a copy of his own book. “This he would not listen to and inscribed the book so that I might give it to some other body. [Crussell has entered his son’s name inside Rhode’s inscription.] He forgot however to sign his name…so I have corrected the oversight by pasting in his signature cut from one of his letters.”

Eugene Manlove Rhodes [1869-1937] wrote stories of the American West that helped set the image of cowboy life for novels and films that followed. Most of his works were published in newspapers and magazines before they reached book form. Knaves was serialized in The Saturday Evening Post, Apr 18, Apr 25, May 2 1931. His acknowledged masterpiece Pasó Por Aquí (1926) has been singled out as one of the best westerns ever written. A film adaptation starring Joel McCrea was released in 1949. Rhodes is also credited with creating the phrase 'Land of Enchantment' to describe New Mexico.

Minor soiling to a few spots on fore-edge. Internally clean and tight. and near fine in the elusive dust jacket in lightly darkened spine and a tiny chip to head of spine, and upper right front corner. This is the first state of the book with the rare publisher’s errata sheet bound in between the front free fly leaf and half-title page. An exceptional copy of an outstanding Western book.