Description
The first edition of The Escape and Suicide of John Wilkes Booth by Finis L. Bates, published in 1907.
Octavo, [x], 309pp, [1]. Publisher’s pictorial paper wraps, worn at the spine, title and illustration on front cover. This work is complete with 16 illustrated plates. Even toning to leaves throughout text block. Binding fragile, but generally sound. (Monaghan, 1519)
The Escape and Suicide of John Wilkes Booth by Finis L. Bates (1948-1923) presents a controversial theory that John Wilkes Booth was not killed in 1865, but instead escaped and lived under various aliases before dying by suicide in 1903 in Enid, Oklahoma. Bates, a lawyer, claims to have met a man named John St. Helen, who allegedly confessed to being Booth. The book argues that the man shot at Garrett’s farm was a lookalike and that the government covered up Booth’s escape. The body of “Booth” was widely toured at carnivals throughout the south, until it was lost in the 1970s.
Full title: The Escape and Suicide of John Wilkes Booth or the First True Account of Lincoln’s Assassination Containing a Complete Confession by Booth Many Years After the Crime. Giving in Full Detail the Plans, Plot and Intrigue of the Conspirators, and the Treachery of Andrew Johnson, Then Vice-President of the United States.
