Item #41549 Typed Manuscript Signed. John H. WHITSON.

Typed Manuscript Signed.

This Hoosier attorney turned writer cranked out potboilers -- dime novels, also known as "penny dreadfuls" -- under a variety of pseudonyms for a variety of publishers in the late 19th century, whereupon he became a minister and teacher and continued to pen young adult and mainstream fiction such as "Barbara, a Woman of the West" (1903), "The Rainbow Chasers" (1904) and other novels. Item #41549

TMS, 1p, 8½" X 11", Nashville, TN, 25 March 1923. Very good. Faint edgewear and age toning. A bold and handsome typescript prepared by Whitson of his four-stanza poem "At the Call of the Whistle." This sentimental but sensitive ode to the coming of Spring contrasts new life with the pain of young death: "All things I'd give, dear child, if you could watch this Spring's returning! / But, hark! e'en as I'm wishing it, the whistle calls for you." It closes on a surprisingly morbid, melancholy note: ""So with the Spring we may not walk. Dear heart, 'tis useless grieving; / The stony world cares not at all, and the dear Lord is so far." Whitson crosses out and changes two words in the text ("silver" becomes "bridal" and "must" becomes "will"), and at the close he signs in full, adding "Ward-Belmont," city and date as well. (Whitson taught at the Ward-Belmont school for girls, a tony finishing school, from 1920 to 1923.) Whitson published many poems in many publications, but it's quite uncommon to find anything in his hand.

Price: $295.00

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