Old Jules

Item Details

Boston, MA, Little, Brown, and Company, 1935

Octavo; xiv, [4], 424pp; 20 half tone illustrations, facsimiles and portraits; pictorial endpapers and photo frontispiece of Old Jules. A Fine copy in publisher's beige cloth, embossed title to spine and front board (with line drawing portrait) in blue in a Near Fine illustrated dust jacket (light rubbing & edgewear, 1/2" closed tear at lower spine); scarce thus. 

Widely respected for her works on the Plains Indians (including 'Crazy Horse' and 'Cheyenne Autumn'), the clear-eyed biography of her father, Jules Ami Sandoz, is considered Mari Sandoz' masterpiece. Jules Sandoz, a Swiss immigrant who settled in the harsh Nebraska Sandhills (just south of Pine Ridge Reservation) in the 1880s was a larger-than-life figure—educated, but impulsive and tyrannical. He fled Switzerland in the 1850s after clashing with his father, seeking freedom in America’s frontier. His charisma attracted settlers to the Sandhills, though he knew the land was ill-suited for farming. He was a skilled horticulturalist (he exchanged fruit trees with Luther Burbank), a friend to Native Americans, and a community leader, but his abusive behavior alienated his family. He once wrote to his daughter 'You know that I consider writers and artists the maggots of society' but in th end asked her to document his life, resulting in 'Old Jules, which was rejected 15 times before being finally accepted. The book challenges romanticized depictions of the frontier, showing the toll of settlement on people, especially pioneer women. Jules’s respect for Native Americans, reflected in his friendships with local tribes, influenced Mari’s later works. 'Old Jules' was selected from 582 manuscripts to receive the 1935 Atlantic Monthly Press and Little, Brown Prize for Nonfiction.