The Yarn of a Yankee Privateer. 1926 First Edition, BAL 7649. Rare Dustjacket. by Hawthorne, Nathaniel [editor] (Benjamin Frederick Browne) - 1926

New York: Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1926 New York: Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1926. Includes the very scarce dust jacket. First Edition [of a previously lost manuscript]. Illustrated with photographs and reproductions. 12mo, 308 pp. Green cloth, black imprinting, top page edges dyed. Pictorial jacket in gold and shades of green. Light page edge soiling, previous owner's bookplate blacked out on front pastedown, penciled notation made in year of publication has been erased from ffep. Sharp, bright, tight Near Fine book in the scarce dustjacket, which is chipped and torn, just good, but bright, in its gilt/blue/green coloring (see full jacket scan). One one for the collector: in the early part of this century, some old manuscripts were found among Hawthorne's papers - not in his own script - which matched the script of some journal articles he had edited for another writer in the early nineteenth century. The author of this book - now presumed to be either Hawthorne's brother in law, Benjamin Frederick Browne, or Hawthorne's grandmother's brother, John Lord - is formally described only as an officer on an American Privateer during the War of 1812, who was taken prisoner by the British and imprisoned in the Barbados and at Dartmoor, Devon. His account of the Dartmoor Massacre - the killing by the British of American captives held at Dartmoor - is believed to be the only extant first-hand description of it. As described on the (rare) dustjacket, the text is written in the "clean, quaint English of a century ago"; and, as much more than just a rollicking nautical tale of governmentally-endorsed sailing piracy, it bears witness to a great deal of American history. Book itself is in handsome condition, fairly sparkles; well-worn jacket is essentially complete and bright, and retains the important panel information. BAL 7649. L21