Feb 26, 2009 - Sale 2171

Sale 2171 - Lot 215

Price Realized: $ 960
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500
INSCRIBED TO D.W. GRIFFITH (FILM.) [GRIFFITH, D.W.] DIXON, THOMAS. The Southerner. A Romance of the Real Lincoln. Illustrated. 8vo, original red cloth, lettered in white; lettering flaked; binding rubbed and worn. Large bookplate with "Author's Autograph Copy," on the front free end-paper. New York: Appleton, 1913

Additional Details

first edition, a fine association copy, inscribed to D. W. Griffith who in 1905 transformed Dixon''s "Clansman" into the still controversial film "Birth of a Nation." The work presents Lincoln as only the author of a romance about the Klan could paint him. In a prefatory note, Dixon states "every word in relating to the issues of our national life has been drawn from authentic records in my possession." Given his attitudes to the Civil War, the South, Reconstruction and the Klan, it is hardly surprising to find an extraordinary exchange between a black soldier named Julius Caesar Thornton, accused of desertion who tells a patronizing Lincoln, "Yassah--dat dey did. Dey sho'' volunteered me whether or no--," "Well it looks like I''ll have to let them have you Julius, for an example. I''ve tried to save you--but--Every time I grab you, you slip right through my fingers. I reckon they''ll have to shoot you."