WA-SHA-QUON-ASIN (Grey Owl). Tales of an Empty Cabin. London, Lovat Dickson Limited, 1936.
8vo. Original cloth with bevelled edges, spine lettered in gilt, top edge gilt, others uncut; pp. [2], xvi, 335, colour frontispiece, plates after photographs; a fine copy.
First edition, number 20 of a print run of 250, signed by the author. This is a fine book production of a work of semi-fiction written by Archibald Stansfeld Belaney (1888-1938). Belaney, who spent the latter half of his life purporting to be the son of a Scotsman and an Apache woman. 'Born Archibald Stansfeld Belaney on 18 September 1888 in Hastings, he grew up enthralled by stories of Native Americans and moved to Canada aged 17 in search of a new life. He married a girl from the Ojibwa tribe and learned the language, trapping and canoeing. He kept his true identity a secret, however, telling inquisitive traders and trappers he was the son of a Scotsman who had married an Apache … The fame of his books led to Grey Owl being invited to carry out lecture tours of Canada, England and the United States in the 1930s and he became arguably the first celebrity conservationist … His incredible tale was turned into a 1999 biopic by the director Richard Attenborough, who attended a lecture by Grey Owl as a boy in Leicester in the 1930s with his brother David, who himself would go on to become one of Britain's most famous wildlife experts' (Jane Onyanga-Omara, Grey Owl: Canada's great conservationist and imposter BBC, online).
#2121134