The Marne: Historic and Picturesque

Chicago: A.C. McClurg & Co, 1922. Hardcover. 8vo. Green cloth with gilt lettering, pictorial dust jacket. 332pp. Frontispiece, illustrations, map endpapers. Near fine/good plus. Jacket complete and fairly attractive, though edgeworn, rubbed and edge chipped. A tight and lovely first edition of Hanson's second book, a travelogue along the French river of World War One fame -- with a choice autograph addition: Tipped to the inner flyleaf is a Typed Letter Signed from Hanson (1876-1960), 1p, 8½" X 11", Manassas, Virginia, 6 January 1955. Addressed to Arnold F. Gates (1914-93), noted Lincoln and Civil War scholar. Near fine. Excellent content thanking Gates for the New York City Civil War Round Table newsletter he'd created. He agrees to send Gates flyers for his first Civil War book, "Bull Run Remembers," and discusses some reviews it's gotten -- including that of John T. Winterich, "who served with me on the original 'Stars and Stripes' in Paris in 1918-19...." It was here, and as a writer in Europe after WW1, that Hanson researched the Marne for this book. "The Civil War Round Table is, to me, the most interesting organization to which I belong -- of course, I am a 'fan' on the subject. But there is a world of sturdy Americanism to be derived by anybody from study and discussion of the heroism and devotion of Americans of that era, both North and South, to their conceptions of their rights under the constitution which had been framed to implement a democracy. I think that today every American can get a better grip on the essentials of patriotism through familiarity with the intense efforts put forth by both sides in that struggle...." Signed boldly in full in black ballpoint.