Description
WINTHROP, Theodore. Edwin Brothertoft. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1862.
First Edition. Second Printing. 8vo. 18 cm tall. 369 pages. Publisher’s full brown cloth, boards stamped in blind, gilt lettering to spine. Second edition (so stated on title page; actually the second printing of the first edition from the original stereotype plates). Colby, “Bibliographical Notes,” 6. Near Fine. Neat contemporary ownership inscription (“Miss Lizzie Wilson”) in a fine cursive hand on blank prelim. Moderate fading to the cloth. Moderate wear to bottom board corners. Mild wear to top board corners. Mild wear to spine ends. Small bookseller’s ticket of Stratford & Green on rear pastedown.
- The third and last novel from Major Theodore Winthrop, who is widely regarded as the first Union officer (and very likely the first officer of either army) to be killed in a pitched, named battle of the American Civil War.
- Winthrop’s two earlier novels—Cecil Dreeme and John Brent—are now central to nineteenth-century queer literature studies.
- Although Winthrop himself lived before modern sexual identity labels, Cecil Dreeme and his other fiction have become touchstones in nineteenth-century queer fiction.
- 1862 impressions of this Revolutionary War historical romance are scarcely traceable in commerce.
