Elizabeth Avery Meriwether's Annotated Copy of The Life of Benjamin F. Wade, by A.G. Riddle, 1886
Elizabeth Avery Meriwether's Annotated Copy of The Life of Benjamin F. Wade, by A.G. Riddle, 1886
With her ownership inscription on the front free endpaper: "E. A. Meriwether / December 10th, 1908." Followed by several lines of hostile commentary on Wade's attitude toward Southern secession. Beneath Wade's engraved portrait, she adds "A bad & very conceited man - of narrow judgment - mean & narrow views." The rear endpapers contain a substantial series of page references to subjects that evidently attracted Meriwether's attention, including slavery in New England, Ohio laws regarding slavery, secession, Northern attitudes, and related political questions. Her most extended judgment appears immediately beneath the final sentence of the text: "A very poorly written / story - very conceited & al- / together untrue. The writer is / or was incapable of seeing the / facts of history."
Meriwether (1824-1916), Tenessee-born author, suffragist, and ardent defender of the post-war South, was a vocal exponent of Lost Cause interpretations of the Civil War. Her annotations in this biography of the prominent abolitionist and Radical Republican Benjamin F. Wade provide a revealing contemporary example of her reading and ideological response to a Northern account of Reconstruction-era politics. A notably personal association copy, preserving Meriwether's sharply expressed reaction both to Wade and to Riddle's presentation of him.
Elizabeth Avery Meriwether's Annotated Copy of The Life of Benjamin F. Wade, by A.G. Riddle, 1886
With her ownership inscription on the front free endpaper: "E. A. Meriwether / December 10th, 1908." Followed by several lines of hostile commentary on Wade's attitude toward Southern secession. Beneath Wade's engraved portrait, she adds "A bad & very conceited man - of narrow judgment - mean & narrow views." The rear endpapers contain a substantial series of page references to subjects that evidently attracted Meriwether's attention, including slavery in New England, Ohio laws regarding slavery, secession, Northern attitudes, and related political questions. Her most extended judgment appears immediately beneath the final sentence of the text: "A very poorly written / story - very conceited & al- / together untrue. The writer is / or was incapable of seeing the / facts of history."
Meriwether (1824-1916), Tenessee-born author, suffragist, and ardent defender of the post-war South, was a vocal exponent of Lost Cause interpretations of the Civil War. Her annotations in this biography of the prominent abolitionist and Radical Republican Benjamin F. Wade provide a revealing contemporary example of her reading and ideological response to a Northern account of Reconstruction-era politics. A notably personal association copy, preserving Meriwether's sharply expressed reaction both to Wade and to Riddle's presentation of him.
