Unread: final page of the text is un-opened. Tight, flat, square, crisp and sharp book in DJ with rips, chips, nicks and creasing. First Illustrated Classics edition (included in bibliography with no additional printings): an "instant classic" from the history, issued into the series after winning the Newberry Award. Color illustrated endpapers dated with the copyright date of the illustrated classic, som foxing and glue stain. Color plates accompany the original B/W drawings liberally peppered throughout the text. We acquired this in a collection of Will James novels, which included the previous owner's reading copy. The 1927 Newbery Award, Smoky, the Cow Horse, is narrated in the cowboy vernacular of the 1920?s. It details the life of a horse in the western United States from his birth to his eventual decline. Smoky is born in the wild, captured and trained and becomes known as the best cowhorse around. However, Smoky is stolen by a horse thief, beaten repeatedly as punishment, and eventually attacks and kills the thief. Will James (1892-1942), artist and writer of the American West, was born Joseph Ernest Nephtali Dufault. It was during his creative years everyone grew to know him as Will James. During the next several years, he drifted, worked at several jobs, was briefly jailed for cattle rustling, served in the army, and began selling his sketches and in 1922 sold his first writing, Bucking Horse Riders. The sale of several books followed. An artist and author of books about the American west and, in particular, horses, Will James wrote the 1926 book "Smoky the Cowhorse". It was awarded the John Newbery Medal in 1927, and remains in print to this day. Several movie adaptations of the story have been created, including a 1933 version that included Will James himself as the narrator.