8vo. Original red cloth, spine lettered in white and black; FIRST ISSUE dust jacket priced "$3.95" (spine lightly sunned). Provenance: Charlotte Wilson (presentation inscription from the author).

FIRST EDITION (stated) OF RAWL'S FIRST NOVEL. PRESENTATION COPY, INSCRIBED BY RAWLS on the front pastedown: "To Charlotte Wilson with best wishes from the author Wilson Rawls." First published in 3 parts as "The Hounds of Youth" in the Saturday Evening Post, Where the Red Fern Grows is an autobiographical novel for children based on Rawls' childhood raising Redbone Coonhounds for hunting in the Ozark Mountains. The work was adapted to film in 1974 and again in 2003.