The Outlaw Years. The History of the Land Pirates of the Natchez Trace.

New York: The Macaulay Company, 1930 Hard cover, 8vo in tan cloth, green titles, with map endpapers, 308 pp. in original unclipped dust jacket with art by H.E. Wenck, in mylar. Condition: Very Good Minus. Boards show some foxing and top edge dusty. Inside is clean, tight and gently age-toned. The d/j, with its vibrant design, has some missing chips, closed tears and a darkened spine, but is nonetheless eye-catching. This is a Literary Guild "Gold Label Book" Founded in 1927, the Literary Guild was in the same space as the mail order firm Book of the Month Club (founded one year earlier.)**The author uses diaries, maps and quotations from a host of original sources to discuss the land-stealing scourge perpetrated by organized bandits, as pioneers moved westward from what is now Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and into the new "western" territories around the Mississippi. Includes discussions about various "wilderness highwaymen" including the Harpes, Joseph Thompson Hare, Samuel Mason, and the infamous John McClellan and his band of n'er do wells intent on using whipped up fears of a slave rebellion to support his own criminal supremacy. A reading copy of a really interesting, well-written book that deserves to be read. Author Robert M. Coates ( 1897-1973) published in The New Yorker, and art critic at that publication from 1937-67. OCLC 1123487760.. A "Gold Label Book," a Literary Guild selection. Hard Cover. Very Good Minus/Very Good Minus. Illus. by H.E.Wenck (dust jacket).