Captivity of the Oatman Girls, Being an Interesting Narrative of Life Among the Apache and Mohave Indians

3rd edition.  300pp, with engraved frontispiece, map and engraved illustrations (all illustrations present as called for).  In a later binding of green cloth-covered boards with titles and shelf number  on spine.  12mo.  Cloth gently rubbed and rounded at corners and spine ends.  Text block edges a little toned, affecting extreme page margins.  Former library book with the bookplate of the Mercantile Library, Philadelphia on from paste down. Front free endpaper removed, remaining endpapers heavily toned.  A little toning and  faint and occasional spotting on first and last few leaves.  Title page and frontispiece soiled, with a faint library stamp, minor pencil annotation and paper scar across top (not affecting text) else internally neat, clean and tight.  

An interestingly early and scarce edition of one of the more famous Indian captivity narratives.  The Oatman family, Quakers, were attacked in Arizona, while travelling to Illinois – the parents and four children were killed.  Olive and her younger sister, Mary Ann, who later died of starvation, were captured.  Four years later, tattooed, Olive was released at Fort Yuma.  Stratton’s account, when first published in 1857, was an immediate best seller and made Oliver and her brother Lorenzo, sensations.  All copies of the previous two editions of this book having sold out within months, the author was persuaded to produce a third edition only a year after the first.  In his preface to this, the third edition, Stratton says ‘the reader will find book much improved in its intrinsic interest by the addition of [these] geographical, traditional, and historical items.  The matter added [for the third edition] is chiefly of the peculiar traditions and superstitions of the tribes who were the captors and possessors of Miss Oatman.  Three new illustrations are also added and the old ones newly drawn and engraved.  Every plate has been enlarged and the work done in a much improved and more perfect style.’