Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War

New York: Harper and Brothers, 1866 First edition, first printing, with "hundred" misspelled as "hnndred" on copyright page. Publisher's brown C cloth, publisher's device in blind to boards, spine stamped in gilt, beveled edges to boards, and brown-coated endpapers. Very good, with modest toning to spine, very shallow chipping to cloth at spine ends, light rubbing to corners of boards and to endpapers, small chip and closed tear to fourth front flyleaf, slight abrasion to title page, chip to top corner of p. 119, and slight separation between pp. 120-121. Overall, a handsome and sleek copy. Housed in a custom quarter morocco clamshell box. From the library of Pulitzer Prize winning author Kenneth Silverman. BAL 13673. Melville's reflections on the moral questions of the American Civil War, Battle-Pieces explores themes such as the loss of innocence and martyrdom during a time when the nation was in a period of intense conflict. The book was Herman Melville's first volume of poetry, with 72 poems about the Civil War and its aftermath (the poems are divided into two sections - an untitled first section containing 52 poems that trace the history of the war, followed by a section titled "Verses Inscriptive and Memorial"). Additionally, a prose Supplement at the end of the volume features Melville's thoughts on how the country can heal and move forward. The book was not popular or critically acclaimed in its time, selling only 486 copies in two years, but received renewed attention and praise at the start of the 20th century. Chiefly a biographer, Professor Kenneth Silverman co-directed the American Civilization program at NYU and won the Pulitzer and Bancroft prizes for his work The Life and Times of Cotton Mather. Other notable works of his include biographies of Edgar Allan Poe and Samuel F. B. Morse. A magician himself, he also profiled the life of Harry Houdini. . First Edition. Hard Cover. Very Good.