A History of the Detection, Conviction, Life and Designs of John A. Murel, The Great Western Land Pirate ….
Cincinnati: [U. P. James, n.d., ca. 1854].
Price: $1,000.00
About the item
Portrait frontispiece, 5 plates. [ii],[17]-84, [iii]-[xiii]. 1 vols. 8vo. Original wrappers. Extremities a little rubbed, but still a very good copy. Howes W 76; Adams Six-Guns (2nd ed.) 2301; Cohen 14041 (note); Sabin 101209.
Item #313262
This famous, but misunderstood, American outlaw narrative was actually taken from the papers of Virgil Stewart, a willing participant in Murrell's plans. Stewart raised the spectre of Murrell as a mass murderer and, more frightening for the antebellum South, the ringleader of a slave uprising. However, Murrell was really a much simpler con man: he persuaded slaves to run away, then resold them into slavery elsewhere. The roman numbered pages at the end are a sample of J. J. Thompson's A History of the Feud Between the Hill and Evans parties of Garrard County, KY. The date of this edition is a matter of much question, with Howes not dating it at all, Adams implying that it may have preceded the Lexington and Athens editions of 1835, and Sabin estimating its publication at c. 1850. However, Howes also dates Thompson's work advertised in this edition at 1854. In any case, it is evidently rare.
