The Mystery of "A Public Man": A Historical Detective Story

Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1948. Hardcover. 8vo. Red cloth, price-clipped dust jacket. 256pp. Very good/very good. Jacket rather edgeworn and a bit rubbed. First edition, tight and nice. This copy bears a delightful autograph addition: Tipped to an inner flyleaf is a Typed Letter Signed from PAUL M. ANGLE (1901-74), noted Lincoln and Illinois historian, 1p, 8½" X 11", Springfield, IL, 1944 October 31. Addressed to Virginia Goldberg of Chicago's noted Abraham Lincoln Book Shop. Near fine. On "Illinois State Historical Society" letterhead citing him as "State Historian," Angles declines to purchase "the Civil War item described on the enclosed card" (which postcard is also tipped to this flyleaf) and chats about Frank Maloy Anderson's book: "I'm in trouble. While I had the proofs of The Diary of a Public Man I scrawled a review on two or three sheets of plain white paper. 'Scrawled' is the word because I did it on the train on the way to Chicago for the meeting of the Civil War Round Table. Now I can't find what I wrote. My last hope is that it may have been enclosed with the proofs which I returned to you. If that is the case and if you didn't throw the sheets away, please return them...." Signed simply "Paul" in black ink. The Abraham Lincoln Book Shop published a limited edition of "The Diary of a Public Man" in 1944 -- the book that Anderson seeks to expose as a hoax in this book. An interesting and unique copy.