Murray, W. H. H. The Story that the Keg Told Me and The Story of the Man who didn't Know Much (The Adirondack Tales, Vol. I.). Boston: De Wolfe, Fiske & Co., 1889. [12567]
Brown cloth with black lettering to front, gilt title & publisher on spine, black head of a stag also on the spine. The binding shows edge-wear and light scuffing with good solid intact joints, a little fraying at the spine ends & corner tips, 7 3/4 x 5 1/2 inches. B/w frontispiece illustration of a John Norton the Trapper in buckskins with powder horn, belt knife, and flintlock rifle. Oval vignette portrait of Murray on the title page. xvi, 454 clean pp. Good. Hardcover.
Copyright, 1889 by Cupples & Hurd. This printing from the same year by De Wolfe, Fiske & Co. of Boston. Cupples & Hurd went out of business in 1889 and De Wolfe, Fiske & Company acquired the plates to this book and printed new copies from them in the same year. The brown cloth binding with De Wolfe & Fiske on the spine indicates that this is the first print run by them, using the original printing plates with a new title page with their name as publishers in the imprint.
The frontispiece is attributed to Frank Thayer Merrill and also indicates the first print run after the acquisition of Cupples & Hurd's text plates. This illustration was the only one prepared at that time, and although later editions had more illustrations, this first printing with only one illustration was the state of affairs when C. & H. went bankrupt.
The two Adirondack stories in this book feature John Norton the Trapper, one of Murray's most famous characters. He is said to be based upon the real trapper, Adirondack guide, and friend of Murray, John Plumbley of Long Lake, New York.
William Henry Harrison Murray (1840-1904), Yale graduate (1862) and Congregational pastor (1869-1873) who became renowned as a writer and lecturer on the Adirondack mountains. He was known as "Adirondack Murray," and is credited with sparking the Outdoor Movement, in which thousands of tourists, hunters, fisherman, and campers flocked to the Adirondack area.
