12mo. Title-page printed in red. Original vegetable vellum wrapper printed in red folded over an inner wrapper; original glassine; rare original dust jacket laid in (in two pieces); folding chemise and case. Provenance: Samuel Richards (1853-1893), artist (recipient of book and letter); Warren Bigler (bookplate).

FIRST EDITION printed on laid paper with horizontal chain lines, as BAL notes, this being the first true edition. THE AUTHOR'S FIRST BOOK, which includes a collection of poems in the Hoosier dialect, first appeared in the Indianapolis Journal under the pseudonym of Benjamin F. Johnson. BAL 16525. A VERY FINE COPY.

[With:] RILEY. Typed letter to Samuel Richards, Indianapolis, 31 July 1883. 1p., 8vo, old folds, signed in type. Riley writes to his close schoolboy friend from Anderson, the renowned painter Samuel Richards (1853–1893), enclosing the book and describing it as "a little unpretentious sort o' venture in Hoosier dialect which I feel sure will please you, however, it may fail with the general public."