Major Jack Downing Pseudonym (1 results)

Hardcover. Condition: Fair. 3rd Edition. Third edition. Ex-library copy with front and rear endpapers removed. Wear to corners and spine ends; binding tight; pages clean with some foxing. "Property of Admiral Farragut Academy" stamps on inside cover and title page, though the school wasn't founded until 1933, so no idea how this 1866 volume ended up there. A curious book: Humorist Seba Smith invented the character of Jack Downing in the 1830s and published several volumes of satirical letters, but he retired Downing in 1860 . . . so who wrote this? The letters are dated 1862 to 1864, and they incorporate pro-slavery sentiments into the barely-literate Downing dialect style, so my assumption is that the notorious white supremacist publisher, Van Evrie & Horton, borrowed Seba Smith's character (with permission?) to push anti-Lincoln, pro-Confederate propaganda, in line with the rest of the repellent Van Evrie catalog. Uncommon in any condition. 254 pages.…