TALES OF THE SOUTHERN BORDER. Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo & Co., 1853. 12mo, pp. [1-3] 4-5 [6-8] 9-400, eight inserted plates, one illustration engraved on wood in the text, original decorated brown cloth, front and rear panels stamped in blind, spine panel stamped in gold. First cloth edition, preceded by an 1852 edition in parts. Includes "Jack Long; or, the Shot in the Eye," Webber's famous frontier story published separately at least twice as a paperbound pamphlet in the 1840s. "Frontier Gothic is the very stuff of this western thriller. Whether the revenge that the sharp-shooting hunter, Jack Long, takes on ten men who brutally whip him almost to death in front of his wife and children is supernatural revenge is a matter left to the reader." - Frank. Webber's gruesome tale of frontier justice is echoed in a popular modern Western allegory, Clint Eastwood's 1973 film, High Plains Drifter. "Webber's stories, though crude, are spirited and picturesque. They have, moreover, the advantage of an entirely new scene of action. Though the school of 'Wild West' fiction later established by Alfred Henry Lewis owed little or nothing to him, he was its true pioneer." - Fullerton, p. 289. See DAB for a sketch of the action-packed life and career of this American adventurer, western explorer, and man of letters who "excelled in descriptions of wild border life." Charles Wilkins Webber, born in 1819 in Russellville, Kentucky, "joined the filibustering party commanded by the military adventurer, William Walker, and, according to all accounts, was killed at Nicaragua in the battle of Rivas on 11 April 1856." - DAB. Barron, ed., Fantasy and Horror (1999) 1-151. Frank, Through the Pale Door: A Guide To and Through the American Gothic 484. Wright (II) 2672. Howes W199. Cloth worn at edges, professionally rebacked, new endpapers, foxing throughout the text (as is usually the case), a sound, good copy. (#157192).
Price: $225.00
No statement of printing.