THE LOW DOWN ON CALAMITY JANE.
Rapid City: Privately printed, 1932. 12pp. Yellow printed wrappers with a photograph of Calamity Jane on the front and Gutzon Borglum carving Washington’s profile on the back. Foreword on the verso of the front wrapper. First edition. Except for some minor creasing to the bottom of the back wrapper, it is a bright, fine copy. Adams, Six-Guns 644: “Rare. This little pamphlet was written by a woman who claimed to have known Calamity Jane, and it is said that she was in a position to know the ‘seamy side of [Jane’s] character’ since she was quite a character herself.” Dora Du Fran was one of Deadwood’s most successful madams. In her early days in Deadwood, she became a friend and occasional employer of Calamity Jane, reportedly as a prostitute. During the last few months of her life, Calamity worked in Du Fran’s brothel doing laundry for Dora’s brothel girls. While unreliable on some historical facts, the author gives us insights into Calamity Jane as a person.