[ILLUSTRATED POSTAL COVER FEATURING JOHN WILKES BOOTH, IMPLORING CITIZENS TO "HUNT THE VILLAIN DOWN"] by [Booth, John Wilkes] - 1865

[N.p., 1865. Illustrated envelope, 3 x 5 1/2 inches. Minor edge wear. Near fine. An unused example of the only known design of John Wilkes Booth on a U.S. postal cover, featuring a wood engraving of the assassin by J.D. Ehlers. Originally created and sold by a Washington, D.C. stationer and bookseller named C.H. Anderson, this is a somewhat later strike of the cover, perhaps a souvenir printing, without Anderson's two-line imprint present on the only two recorded examples known from his shop. The cover's design carries the simple title "Booth" at top, with a well-executed engraved portrait bust, which was most assuredly based on a previous image of the famous actor and presidential assassin. The envelope was meant to function as a wanted poster, which Anderson's melodramatic text makes clear: "Hunt the villain down. Scatter this likeness in every section of the country, scan every face, particularly if it shuns you, observe closely the features which cannot change, make due allowance for the beard to grow, the mustache shaved off, and the hair cut. It may be by your means that a benignant Government shall mete out justice to one for whom there should be no mercy." Rare in itself, we could find no auction records or commercial offerings of this example. MILGRAM, p.175 (illustrating the original Anderson printing).