Description
First edition of Jefferson Davis: Ex-President of the Confederate States of America, by his wife, Varina Howell Davis.
Thick octavo, [two volumes], xvii, [3], 699pp; xxxii, 939pp. Publisher’s light blue cloth, title stamped in gilt on spine, decorative black border on side panels. Soiling to spine of Volume I, side panel of Volume II. Both volumes with stable text block, rear hinge reinforced in Volume II. Frontispiece in both volumes, with numerous illustrations, plates and folding map, tissue covers. (Nevins II, 51) (Eicher, 155) A handsome set.
Varina Davis (1826-1906) was the only First Lady of the Confederate States of America and the second wife of Confederate President Jefferson Davis. After the death of President Davis in 1889, Varina completed her husband’s autobiography, Jefferson Davis: A Memoir, but it was not a bestseller as she had hoped. She moved to New York in 1891 and became a full-time columnist for the New York World newspaper.
