The Wilderness Lives Again; Carl Akeley and the Great Adventure. Foreword by F. Trubee Davison. With Illustrations and Maps

New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1940. First Edition, First Printing. Cloth. Near fine/very good. The first edition of The Wilderness Lives Again by Mary L. Jobe Akeley, inscribed to F. Trubee Davison, who wrote the foreword.. Octavo, xiv, 411pp. Red cloth, title stamped in gilt on spine. No additional printings noted. Illustrated endpapers. Light sunning to cloth spine, internally fine. Complete with 15 illustrated plates. In the publisher's dust jacket, $3.00 retail price on front flap, a few closed tears with archival tape repairs to verso, bright illustrations, a very good example. Signed on the half title: "To F. Trubee Davison - With high regard and many good wishes - Mary L. Jobe Akeley." The recipient of this copy, F. Trubee Davison (1896-1974) was the United States Assistant Secretary of War and President of the American Museum of Natural History. During World War I, he formed the "First Yale Unit," the first naval air reserve unit. After the war, Davison served as Assistant Secretary of War for Air from 1926-1933, when he was asked to head the American Museum of Natural History in New York. He quickly set off to Africa in 1934 to complete the collection at the Natural History Museum, begun by Theodore Roosevelt and Carl Akeley, with four elephants.