My Confession
New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, (1956). First edition. Paintings, some color. Hardcover. Octavo. x, 302 pages. Near fine in a very good dust jacket. A touch of faint browning to endpapers and textblock edges. Jacket has spots of rubbing along fore edge and joint folds, a few shallow edge chips, and a bit of sun fading to spine. Clean, sound, and snugly bound.
Chamberlain's memoir details his personal adventures in Mexico and the American Southwest before, during, and after the Mexican War. It is the primary source for Cormac McCarthy's masterpiece, "Blood Meridian." Though nearly all the individuals that appear in both Chamberlain's memoir and McCarthy's novel can be found elsewhere in the historical record, this memoir remains the only historical reference to that consummate villain, Judge Holden.
Chamberlain apparently wrote this memoir between the years 1855 and 1861, when he again joined the army during the Civil War. The content here reveals a half hero, half scoundrel lad who gloried in a fray and had an eye for a pretty girl. The unpublished manuscript was discovered in a Connecticut antiques shop in the 1940s. A condensed version appeared in Life Magazine the summer prior this book debut. Illustrated with 55 paintings by Chamberlain, including 16 pages in color.
Introduction and Postscript by Roger Butterfield.
Item #1242
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