MISS RAVENEL'S CONVERSION FROM SECESSION TO LOYALTY. New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, 1867. 12mo, pp. [i-v] vi [misnumbered "iv"] [7] 8-521 [522: blank] [523-528: ads], double flyleaves at front and rear, original lavender bevel-edged cloth, front and rear panels stamped in blind, spine panel stamped in gold, brown coated endpapers. First edition. The first realistic novel of the American Civil War, written by a veteran who recruited a company, the Twelfth Connecticut volunteers, and served through the war. "There is little glamour in MISS RAVENEL'S CONVERSION ... it is war in its sordid reality, with no attempt to conceal the inefficiency and corruption that prevented so long the success of the Union forces ... Long before Stephen Crane's RED BADGE OF COURAGE, De Forest had pictured the real feelings of the troops with a more authentic knowledge and with fewer journalistic touches ... The work of ... De Forest ..., perhaps the most truly a realist of the novelists who began to write in the early 'fifties, has not been accorded its proper significance, except by William Dean Howells, and his novels are now difficult to obtain." - Quinn, American Fiction, pp. 166-8. BAL 4605. Wright (II) 709. Cloth faded, light wear at spine ends and corner tips, small chips from rear free endpaper and last flyleaf, a very good copy of an elusive book. (#131334).
Price: $450.00
No statement of printing.