Among the Indians: Eight Years in the Far West 1858 – 1866 Embracing Sketches of Montana and Salt Lake

A beautiful little edition that has navy blue cloth hardbound boards with gold gilt on the cover and spine as well as gold Lakeside Press logo on cover. The spine, boards and corners are in near perfect condition with no edgewear or blemishes. The corners are all sharp with no bumping or wear. The spine is straight with the hinges firmly attached to the endpapers with no cracking. Text block is solid with all pages firmly attached with gold gilt along the top edge, deckled pages to the front. Tissue guard over frontispiece and three engravings intact. Light age tanning throughout. Fold out map is in excellent condition. Laid in business card Edwin R. Tyk, The Lakeside Press. The interior pages are in excellent condition with no chips, cracks, damage, or previous owner marks. 457 pages including an index and three pages listing of all the Eastlake editions since 1903.

Henry A. Boller (1836 – 1902) was an "Opposition" trader (small, independent firms separate from the American Fur Company) from 1858 until 1862 on the Upper Missouri. Boller's account published in 1868 was based on his notes and journals, and is recognized as the "most authoritative narrative of fur trading among that time period." It is more of an account of the Indian tribes among whom he lived which included the Sioux, Gros Ventres, Mandan's, and Assiniboine's as well as the trading posts, trappers and traders, the Indian wars and massacres, but was a more sympatric view of the Indians then most publications at that time.

This version of "Among the Indians: Eight Years in the Far West 1858 – 1866 Embracing Sketches of Montana and Salt Lake" was published in 1959 by the Lakeside Press (an imprint of R. R. Donnelley & Sons) as their Christmas edition, a tradition that began in 1903. This would have been one of the annual publications that the Lakeside Press gave as keepsakes to their employees, stockholders, vendors and business associates (the books were never sold by R. R. Donnelley, so they only become available in the secondary market). Initially the goal of the series was to reproduce a book which had long been out of print, extremely uncommon and were usually only known to historians of the West.

It was edited by Milo Milton Quaife (1880- 1959) a Michigan and Great Lakes historian who was also the editor of the Lakeside Classics historical series from 1916 to 1959. This was the forty-third book Quaife edited and was his last.