8vo. Original purple gilt-lettered cloth [Crane's binding b], with "Willa S. Cather" on spine front cover (outside of the title box); in a later (ca 1918) unrestored dust jacket, unpriced, with the 13-line blurb on the front panel, with the adverts on rear panel beginning with Samuel Hopkins Adams' Success, and with a blurb for My Ántonia on rear flap (a few chips and tears, some soiling).

FIRST EDITION OF CATHER'S FIRST NOVEL, second issue of the text with half-title bound after the title-page. The work follows title character Bartley Alexander, a world-renowned builder of bridges, through his struggles with infidelity and integrity. In its 1912 review, The New York Times praised Cather's ability at ''catching and describing in terse, refined phrase the salient features of personality.'' Crane A5b.i.