Thunder at Harper’s Ferry.
signed first edition
1958 · Englewood Cliffs, NJ
by Keller, Allan.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., (1958). First Edition. Signed by the Author. Octavo, cloth & boards (hardcover), burgundy endpapers, v, 282 pp. Near-Fine, with embossed stamp; in a Good, mylar protected dust jacket with edgewear that includes light chipping and sunned spine. From dust jacket: A stern command, spoken on a chill, rain-swept afternoon in October, 1859, began the ill-fated raid at Harper’s Ferry, which stirred and inflamed this nation as few events have done. Here is the complete story of the momentous days following these words, when, in a hollow of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, John Brown and twenty-one men acted out a violent drama that carried the country closer to Civil War. The titanic, Old Testament ficutre of John Brown, prophet, idealist, revolutionary, strides across these pages, with a handful of men, including his three sons, who followed him in his abortive attempt to free the slave: his three sons... John Hnery Kagi, the fiery ex-schoolmaster... Stewart Taylor, the spiritualist who foresaw his death in the raid... William H. Leeman, gay, handsome -- killed with his commission as a captain in Brown’s army still in his pocket... and the others who found History waiting for them on that gray October day. These men -- their hopes, fears, and prayers -- are your companions through these fateful three days, recounted with an experienced journalist’s eye for truth, drama, and eyewitness detail. The small triangle of river-framed land they fought over -- the Wager Hotel, the Galt Saloon, the rifle factory, the enginehouse where John Brown finally surrendered -- becomes as familiar to you as your own neighborhood and living room. So vividly does the author reproduce the background events that you are rewarded with an intimate understanding of the issues and feelings that divided our country on the eve of its great civil conflict. In this brilliant contribution to the saga of the Civil War, Allan Keller separates controversy from fact to show in dramatic terms the kind of man John Brown was -- how his commanding presence and passionate intensity could rally men to his side -- whose sacrifice has become, for better or worse, inscribed in teh conscience of his countrymen. (Inventory #: 4063bd)