Denver, James William:

$850 · Offered by William Reese Company

[AUTOGRAPH LETTER, SIGNED, FROM JAMES WILLIAM DENVER TO HIS TWO SISTERS IN OHIO, CONCERNING ADVICE AND CRITICISM OF POETRY, RELATING A LOCAL "TRAGI-COMIC" INCIDENT OF SPURNED LOVE, PLUS OTHER LOCAL ... An early James W. Denver letter written by him to his two sisters in Ohio, Mary Caroline and Jane Campbell Denver, while he was working as a lawyer and actor in Missouri in 1846. This was a year before James Denver (1817-92) raised a unit to fight during the Mexican-American War, and before he had served in any of the varied and famous roles during his long and distinguished career. After the Mexican-American War, Denver served in the California state government, the United States House of Representatives as a Congressman from California, as the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, the Territorial Governor of "Bleeding Kansas," and as an officer in the Union Army during the Civil War, among other positions. Denver first moved to Missouri in 1841 to teach school and returned there in 1845 to practice law.In the present letter Denver discusses the merits and faults of recently-published literature, particularly his "severe criticism" of a poem entitled "The Hunter on the Hills." He also relates the news that he gave a collection of his own poems to the "Platte Argus" for publication. Almost two pages of the letter are taken up with an incident of spurned love that Denver describes in detail, in which a jilted husband experiences "running off with his ladies love - of getting married -

Found via Rare Books Intel, a search across rare-book dealers, auction houses and marketplaces worldwide.