McCarter, Margaret Hill (1860–1938)

The Peace of the Solomon Valley [American Regional Fiction, Prairie Life, Women’s Historical Fiction]

Chicago, A. C. McClurg & Co., 1915, [1911]. 1915, Twenty-Fourth Printing, Stiff Decorated Wraps with Publisher’s Presentation Box. Exceptional boxed example of a popular early prairie novel, unusually fresh

A notably well-preserved boxed example of Margaret Hill McCarter’s most widely read novel, The Peace of the Solomon Valley, here in its twenty-fourth printing, evidence of the book’s sustained popularity in the early twentieth century. Surviving copies are common in worn condition, but examples retaining the original decorated presentation box and showing minimal use are distinctly uncommon.

Physical description: Decorated stiff wraps with three-color printed design, yapp edges. Decorative endpapers. Octavo, approximately 4.75 × 9.25 inches (box). 91 pages. Issued with the original publisher’s presentation box. Includes a contemporary business-sized illustrated Christmas greeting card.

Condition: The bindings are tight and square. Text is clean and appears unread. Wraps bright with only minimal handling. Yapp edges intact. Presentation box very good, showing age-related wear and a small split at the upper left corner of the top lid. Overall a fine example in a very good box. Twenty-Fourth Printing.

The title itself is not scarce. However, copies retaining the original decorated presentation box in this condition are uncommon, and boxed examples are seldom encountered without significant wear or loss.

Set in Kansas’s Solomon Valley, McCarter’s novel blends domestic realism with regional boosterism, presenting prairie life as morally grounding and socially cohesive. The book reads as both a family novel and a cultural argument for settlement, stability, and the civilizing influence of women on frontier communities, themes that resonated strongly with early twentieth-century readers.

Contextual / historical significance:
Published during a period of intense interest in Midwestern settlement narratives, The Peace of the Solomon Valley reflects Progressive-era ideals of order, community, and moral improvement. McCarter, a prominent Kansas writer and reformer, used fiction to shape popular understanding of prairie life at a time when regional novels were central to American literary culture. There is no major film adaptation.

Subjects: Kansas Prairie Life, Women Authors, Settlement Era Fiction, Early 20th-Century American Literature, American Fiction, Regional Literature

Item #21412

Price: $110.00