Description:

Garfield James


James Garfield Biography in Mourning Binding Presented to Widow Lucretia Garfield

 

1st edition hardcover copy of Henry C. Pedder's Garfield's Place in History, an Essay (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1882), in mourning or special publisher's presentation binding.

 

The black morocco leather covers and spine are embossed with gilt tracery, and the pages are gilt-edged. The endpapers and paste-downs are of black silk damask. "In Memoriam, James A Garfield" is the inscription on the front cover, while the spine reads "Garfield's Place in History." A handsome frontispiece portrait of Garfield is located to the left of the title page, with original intact tissue guard. In near fine condition. Light to moderate foxing found within the first few pages of the book. A typographical error on p. 68 has been corrected within the text block. Expected light scuffs and edge wear to binding. Minor damage to the front cover hinge. Measures 8vo, or 6.25" x 8.25" x .625".

 

The 104pp book explores the meaning and impact of Garfield's life and death. Its author, Henry C. Pedder, makes frequent comparisons between Abraham Lincoln and James Garfield, not only because of the circumstances of each of their deaths, but also because each president was renowned for his personal integrity, and led the nation during times of crisis. Pedder, like other contemporaries, noted the symbolic significance of a poor Ohio farm boy's election to the White House. The book reproduces some of Garfield's correspondence and speeches, but it mostly focuses on evaluating Garfield's legacy.

 

For example: "Silently he sleeps his last sleep in his grave at Cleveland; but above the silence and awful majesty of death there arises a sweet and gentle influence which pleads with us to be nobler, better, and purer. A great man has been cruelly snatched from us when we apparently needed him the most. And yet, as we linger, over the story of his life, and catch the fine enthusiasm of his lofty nature, we can proudly point to his character as a glorious edifice…And perhaps there never was an instance in which this was more fully illustrated than in the marvellous [sic range of influences which the death of or late President produced upon the world, and which, without any exaggeration, have revived our faith in human nature, and enlarged and ennobled our views of life." (p. 97-98)

 

James Garfield (1831-1881), a college-educated lawyer, served as an Ohio delegate in the U.S. House of Representatives between 1863 and 1880. The Civil War veteran did not wish to run as a Republican candidate for President in 1880, but he won anyway. On July 2, 1881, President Garfield was shot in a Washington train station lounge by disgruntled office seeker Charles J. Guiteau (1841-1882). The second bullet lodged near Garfield’s pancreas but was irretrievable despite Alexander Graham Bell’s attempts to locate the bullet using the newly developing science of metal detection. After two and a half months of excruciating convalescence in the White House and along the New Jersey shore--where he was probed by many doctors unfamiliar with basic germ theory--Garfield died from complications of an infection at age forty-nine.


At some point following her husband's death, Lucretia Garfield, or “Crete” as she was lovingly called by her husband of twenty-three years, was presented with this commemorative volume. The widow had impressed many by her strength and stoicism in the months and years following her husband’s death. Lucretia became involved in preserving records related to her husband’s presidency in the thirty-six years before her death in the spring of 1918.

 


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