Description
MILLER, Elizabeth. The Yoke. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1904.
First Edition. 8vo. 20 cm tall. pp. [i–x], 1–616; [2] blanks; [14] publisher’s advertisements. Publisher’s full diagonally ribbed dark blue cloth, blindstamping and Margaret Armstrong’s signed pictorial decoration in orange and gold to front board, spine stamped in orange and gold. Binding variant not noted in Gullans & Espey, but represented by the Met’s Thomas J. Watson Library copy. This binding conceivably precedes the more commonly encountered orange, yellow, and gold form, but priority has not been established. Copyright 1904. Copyright page with “January” beneath the Bobbs-Merrill Company imprint and Braunworth & Co. press imprint at foot. Without the 3-page “List of Characters and Places” commonly encountered in other copies and reprints on pages 617-619. Gullans & Espey (1991) 170. The Met, Thomas J. Watson Library, Publishers Bindings 733. Very Good-. Moderate wear and staining to boards and extremities. Mild dampstaining, toning, and foxing to text block. Inscribed in separate hands by both the author and Percy Miller (the author’s brother and the book’s dedicatee) to Miss Maude Hunter. Percy Miller’s inscription reads, “In memory of the Herron Art Institute.” Additional inscription on front pastedown, which reads, “To Maude from Uncle Miller.”
- Elizabeth Miller’s debut novel that she began writing in 1901 with no previous novel-writing experience, based on a plot constructed by Percy Miller (her brother and the book’s dedicatee).
- Advance copies of this story, a historical romance set in the biblical narrative of the Exodus, met the scrutiny and eventual commendation of fifteen hundred various ministers, archaeologists, educators, and editors. See Rice, Some Indiana Writers and Poets (1908).
- This copy inscribed in separate hands by both the author and Percy Miller, with Percy evoking the John Herron Art Institute in Indianapolis (Percy was an art student who the author hoped might illustrate her future work).
- A one-of-a-kind presentation copy offering inscriptions from both author and dedicatee within a debut work that made Elizabeth Miller an overnight sensation and one of the youngest contributors to the Golden Age of Indiana Literature.
