Justin's FrameDesigns

The North American Indian (1907-1930), by Edward S. Curtis, was published in a limited edition and sold by subscription. The lavishly illustrated volumes were printed on the finest paper and bound in expensive leather, making the price prohibitive for all but the most avid collectors and libraries. Subscriptions sold for about $3,000 in 1907; the price rose to about $4,200 by 1924. Although the plan was to sell 500 sets, it appears that Curtis secured only about 220 subscriptions over the course of the project. In 1935 the assets of the project were liquidated, and the remaining materials were sold to the Charles Lauriat Company , a rare book dealer in Boston. Lauriat acquired nineteen unsold sets of The North American Indian, thousands of individual prints, sheets of unbound paper, and the handmade copper photogravure plates. They lay forgotten in the bookstore’s basement until their rediscovery in the 1970s, which marked the revival of interest in Curtis’ haunting images of American Indians.