THE COUNTRY BLUES – SAMUEL B. CHARTERS – 1959 FIRST EDITION — UNIQUE SIGNED – ONE OF A KIND COPY

Signed – Initialed note by Charters – Signed note by Moses Asch on dedication to him

From the Blues Foundation website – The publication of The Country Blues by Sam Charters in 1959 was a major landmark in the development of blues appreciation, as the first book to piece together a chronological, cultural, and stylistic history of the music, complete with biographies of many key performers.

A first edition of Charters’ THE COUNTRY BLUES is hard to find, as is the early Da Capo Press reprints. THIS COPY IS THE COPY USED TO PRODUCE the original Da Capo reprint. You can plainly see the guillotine paper cutter marks on the title page when the book block was held down to cut the pages apart for reproduction. Once completed, this copy was reassembled in the original case, and you can plainly see the book block is shorter in width than original.

Throughout are red marks for edits and pagination of the reprint, Pages 250 and 251 are crossed out in red, and a page inserted with a revised page 250 with two new sections rubber cemented to a new leaf inserted. Those originally cemented portions are now loose. The text does not flow, thus I expect a sheet had been affixed to the verso of the new leaf, but has long been gone. This could be an original revision.

Inscribed on front free fly is “This copy disassembled & then put back together for the Da Capo reprint – S” — Knowing the provenance of this copy, I expect with certainty the S is for Sam – author Samuel B. Charters – provenance to be provided to buyer.

Charters dedicated this book to Moses Asch. Asch (1905-86) was the founder and driving force of Folkways Records, producing over 2,100 recordings. He had Sam Charters help develop recording series and compilations. Ashe wrote a note above the dedication to him. As you can see below that inscription is circled in red to not be reproduced.

above on the copyright page (left) you can see Rinehart mark signifying a first edition.

throughout there are occasional red marks to indicate how the reprint will be put together.

here is the inserted leaf with the revisions at pages 250 – 251.

Below you can easily see the shorter depth of the book block having been cut apart for reproduction.

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