My Confession: The Recollections of a Rogue
New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, (1956). First edition. Color and black & white plates. Hardcover. Octavo. x, 302 pages. Fine in a very good dust jacket. Bound in red and dark blue cloth over boards with spine titled in gilt. Prior owner bookplate on front pastedown, covered by front flap of jacket. Jacket has a few rubs and scuffs, shallow chips to head and heel of spine, and a few closed edge tears.
This is the primary source for Cormac McCarthy's masterpiece, "Blood Meridian," and a very good read itself. Samuel Chamberlain's memoir details his personal adventures in Mexico and the American Southwest before, during, and after the Mexican War.
The content here reveals a half hero, half scoundrel lad who gloried in a fray and had an eye for a pretty girl. Most of the characters in "Blood Meridian" are here, including Glanton, the Judge, Toadvine, and others. Chamberlain's memoir remains the only historical source for the existence of Judge Holden.
Chamberlain apparently wrote this memoir between 1855 and 1861, by which time he had joined the army again during the Civil War. His self-illustrated, unpublished manuscript was discovered in a Connecticut antiques shop in the 1940s. Life Magazine printed a condensed version prior to this, its first appearance as a book 100 years after being written. The illustrations by Chamberlain include 55 paintings, 16 pages of which are in color.
Item #740
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