Songs of a Sourdough by Service, Robert W - 1907

Toronto: William Briggs, 1907. Undetermined. near fine. 1st Canadian Edition, "Author's Edition", a brighter green cloth variant. iv, 82 [1]pp. 12mo. Green cloth with gilt stamped lettering on spine and gilt lettering and vertical line decoration on front cover. Slight bumping, wear and soiling to corners and spine. Mild rubbing and soiling to boards. Some places with very slight discolouration on endpapers. Small stamp from previous seller on ffep. Text block is clean and tight. A nice copy. near fine A1 a. (pp. 21) in Mitham (first ed.). Service originally put together this collection of poems intending to make a Christmas keepsake for his friends. He sent a cheque to cover printing costs and a typescript of the collection to the Methodist Book and Publishing house. However, the heads of the literary department were convinced upon seeing the collection of its literary potential. Book steward William Briggs was convinced by them to accept the collection as a publication of the house itself and not a volume published at the author's expense. William Briggs issued the initial order for the books publication on the 6th of December, 1906. Twenty copies were sent to Service, by Briggs, on the 26th of February 1907 and 30 copies were released for review purposes. The book was published and copyrighted on June 4th, 1907. It was originally priced at seventy-five cents but sold at one dollar; 500 copies were printed with an undetermined number appearing in green cloth and others in brown. 1907