The Life of Hon. William F. Cody Known as Buffalo Bill the Famous Hunter, Scout and Guide. An Autobiography.

Notes

The scarce first edition of William 'Buffalo Bill' Cody's first autobiography, exceptionally rare inscribed by the man himself. The text was probably ghost-written by Prentiss Ingraham, author of dozens of Buffalo Bill dime novels, and it is reported that only a few thousand copies were sold, most of which would have undoubtedly been read to destruction. Cody had by 1879 achieved some fame but it was a few years later that he founded his Wild West show that established the iconic depiction of the American frontier, the format of the rodeo, and the mythologisation of the cowboy figure; a further autobiography (also ghost-written) was required by the time of his death.
This copy has lost (or never had) two leaves of preliminaries but retains an early inscription in Cody's hand, to a J. Anderson in December of 1882, the fertile period when Cody was creating his formative show: in July of 1882 Cody had staged 'The Old Glory Blowout', and the 'Wild West' itself began in May of 1883.
We have been able to trace only one other inscribed copy in commerce, the Doheny copy inscribed to Joseph Gordon Bennett, which sold for $1650 in the 1988 Christie's Doheny sale and again for $3575 in the library of Richard Manney at Sotheby's a few years later.