THE PAPERS OF WALTER CLARK... Volume One, 1857-1901... Volume Two, 1902-1924.

Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, [1948-1950]. Two volumes. xv, [1], 607 and vii, [1], 608 pages, plus portrait frontispiece and plates in each volume. Original red cloth. 24 x 16 cm. Very good plus in good only dust jackets. Bookplate on each front pastedown, mild marginal foxing to plates and facing pages, still a nice set. Jackets are rubbed and soiled and have several tears with repairs on the verso and a few small chips. FIRST EDITION. PRESENTATION INSCRIPTION SIGNED BY THE EDITOR, AUBREY LEE BROOKS, on the front free endpaper of the first volume. Brooks was a political ally of Chief Justice Clark and later his biographer. Some of the correspondence in these volumes is his own. Clark once called Brooks "the foremost and most successful lawyer in North Carolina." --qtd. in the "Dictionary of North Carolina Biography." Walter McKenzie Clark (1846-1924) served as justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court from 1889 and was chief justice from 1903-1924. He was a prominent and controversial figure in the politics of his state. He promoted a variety of reforms, including changes in the election laws, child labor regulations, increased funding for public education, and women's suffrage. He attacked unjust practices by the railroad, banking, and tobacco industries, and thus made enemies of some of the most powerful forces in the state. Clark was offered but declined the Democratic nomination for governor in 1896. In 1912, he fought for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate but lost. In addition to recounting his important legal career, this work also contains correspondence detailing his youthful service as a Confederate officer. Thornton 1284. Books from Chapel Hill, p. 46.