Rare Lecture on Sidney Lanier, Signed by His Widow
Dewey, Thomas Emmett. SIDNEY LANIER. [Cover title.] DELIVERED BEFORE THE KANSAS ACADEMY OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE AT ITS NINTH ANNUAL MEETING AT BAKER UNIVERSITY, BALDWIN, APRIL SEVENTH, MDCCCXCII. [Title page.] President's Address. [Caption title, p. 3.]. [Publisher unknown], 1892. Oblong pamphlet measuring 20 x 13 cm. 34 pages. Original beige coated-paper wraps with an alligator skin texture; gilt cover title; top edge gilt. Some faint soiling to wraps, leaves a little toned, still near fine.
FIRST EDITION. SIGNED BY SIDNEY LANIER'S WIDOW, MARY DAY LANIER, at the head of the first page of text. There are also a number of manuscript corrections to the text that appear to be in her hand. On page 5, Dewey mentions Mrs. Lanier as one who provided him with "aid and inspiration," and states that she "has shown me the way to much good material which I have not hesitated to use on this occasion."
Sidney Lanier, Confederate veteran, poet, writer and musician, died in 1881 at the age of 39, a victim of tuberculosis. Mary Day (1844-1931), a native of Macon, Georgia, married Lanier in 1867 and was the mother of his four sons. After his death, she worked to bring greater recognition of her husband's works and edited his collected "Poems" (1884).
Thomas Emmet Dewey (1859-1906), a native of New York, studied at the University of Rochester, before moving to Kansas to complete his graduate studies at the College of Emporia. Admitted to the bar in 1883, he practiced law in Abilene. In 1889, he was appointed reporter of the Supreme Court of Kansas. He was the editor of a literary magazine, "Agora," and he published a collection of essays and original poems: "Poetry in Song, and Some Other Studies in Literature with a Few Pieces of Verse" (1907). That book contains a reprint of the present address and also a poem titled, "To Sidney Lanier." Rare. OCLC locates only the University of Kansas copy; not in NUC.
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