Author: SWIGGETT, Howard
Title: The Rebel Raider: A Life of John Hunt Morgan
Description: Garden City, The Garden City Publishing Co, 1934. Hardcover. 8vo. Blue cloth. 341pp. Frontispiece, illustrations, map endpapers. Very good. Faint edgewear; light glass ring on front board. Reprint of the Bobbs-Merrill 1934 first edition -- tight and nice -- but an unusual hybrid printing that differs from the "regular" Garden City printing in several ways: Title page is partly in red (as the original edition) with the Bobbs-Merrill imprint, the only indication of Garden City Publishing at the foot of the spine; the 8 7/8" height is that of the original edition, not the usual 8 3/8" of the reprint edition; blue cloth is that of the reprint edition, not the green cloth of the original edition; copyright page bears 1934 date of later Bobbs-Merrill printings (no "First Edition" slug), not the 1937 date of the reprint edition; and this edition has a frontispiece and illustrations, whereas the regular reprint has only map endpapers and neither frontispiece nor illustrations. Presumably Garden City acquired unbound sheets from Bobbs-Merrill and simply put their own binding on them with their name noted at foot of spine; once these were depleted they produced their own edition with their name on the black-only title page and the smaller format. These hybrids likely predate the routine Garden City printing. This copy also bears an interesting addition: Tipped to half-title page is a 4" X 4¼" heavy stock steel-engraved head-and-shoulders portrait of Morgan in uniform, likely a high-quality modern reprint of a Civil War-era image.As Robert W. Johannsen critiques, "The author is critical of Morgan and his reputation; he maintains that the General suffered increasing mental disintegration during his last days." NEVINS II, 93. .

Keywords: CIVIL WAR Civil War


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