History In Ink®  Historical Autographs


1108401

Laura Ingalls Wilder

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One book left—On the Banks of Plum Creekfrom an extraordinary set of signed Little House books owned by Laura Ingalls Wilder’s neighbor

Laura Elizabeth Ingalls Wilder, 1867–1957.  American author.  Signed copy of On the Banks of Plum Creek from an exceedingly rare set of Wilder’s Little House books, all boldly signed Laura Ingalls Wilder.

This is the last unsold book of a set with impeccable provenance.  It comes from a family who were neighbors of Laura and Almanzo Wilder at Mansfield, Missouri, which is less than 50 miles from Springfield, where we are located, and who subsequently bought the Wilders’ Rocky Ridge Farm.  Their son, who owned the books, mowed Laura’s lawn as a teenager.  Laura wrote the Little House books at Rocky Ridge Farm, and she signed these books at this family’s request. 

We are separately offering a unique archive of the contracts and deeds by which the neighbors bought Rocky Ridge from the Wilders—documents rarer yet than Laura’s signed books—and several receipts signed by Laura and Almanzo for the neighbors’ monthly payments.  Click here to see the contracts and deeds.  Click here to see receipts signed by Laura.  Contact us to ask about the receipts signed by Almanzo, which we will be listing online soon. 

The available autograph material of Laura Ingalls Wilder, one of America’s most popular children’s authors, is scarce in any form.  When we sold a signed copy of Little House on the Prairie that belonged to a local person, our search of auction records and dealer inventories at the time found no other signed copy of any of Wilder’s books sold at auction, and our colleagues who specialize in signed books whom we consulted had never seen one.  We have since found only one sold at auction, and we sold one other apart from this set.  We have also had a few of Wilder’s books with her signature tipped in, but technically those were not signed books. So this book is exceedingly rare, and even more so with this provenance.

Wilder’s Little House books are timeless and enduring.  Wilder wrote of late 19th Century pioneer life in Wisconsin, Kansas, Minnesota, and South Dakota. Altogether there were nine Little House books:  Little House in the Big Woods (1932); Farmer Boy (1933); Little House on the Prairie (1935); On the Banks of Plum Creek (1937); By the Shores of Silver Lake (1939); The Long Winter (1940); Little Town on the Prairie (1941); These Happy Golden Years (1943); and, published posthumously, The First Four Years (1971).

The series is as popular today as it was three generations ago.  The books have remained in continuous publication since the appearance of Little House in the Big Woods and have been translated into more than 40 languages.  Most of the sites that Wilder described in the books are now museums that annually draw thousands of visitors.

This set originally consisted of seven of the nine books listed above.  Six of the seven were signed.  The signed book that remains available here is On the Banks of Plum Creek.

Each of these cloth-bound books, published by Harper & Brothers, is the 1951 or 1952 reproduction of the original illustrated by Helen Sewell, the earliest illustrator of Wilder’s books, or by Sewell and co-illustrator Mildred Boyle.  Beginning in 1953, their drawings were replaced by those by Garth Williams.  Each of these books is accompanied by the dust cover, although the dust covers are split, frayed, and fragile. 

This was a remarkable set, particularly given its provenance and given the absolute rarity of Wilder’s signed books on the autograph market.  This book belongs in the finest of American literature collections. 

 

These items have all been sold.

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