Description
First edition of Prison Life of Jefferson Davis by John J. Craven.
Octavo, x, [11]-377pp, [6pp ads]. Red pebbled cloth, publisher’s seal stamped in blind to covers. Title in gilt on spine. No additional printings listed on copyright page. Slight lean to text block, bumped corners, cloth lifting along top and bottom of spine, gilt rubbed on lightly sunned spine. Faint foxing throughout, a very good example. Bookplate of W.C. Cleveland affixed to front endpaper, previous ownership inscription to front flyleaf. (Nevins I, pp. 189) (Sabin 17429) Features woodcut frontispiece of Dr. Craven with Davis in his jail cell.
It is widely believed that Bvt. Lt. Col. John Craven was not the author of this “widely read” history of Jefferson Davis, but was in-fact the journalist Charles G. Halpine. The work painted a favorable picture of the former president of the confederacy and helped to secure his release from prison after a year. Jefferson Davis read a copy of the book while imprisoned at Camp Monroe and noted many inaccurate passages and quotations. (Eischer, 157). A revised work was published in 1987 titled “Fiction Distorting Fact,” Prison Life, Annotated by Jefferson Davis by Edward K. Eckert.
