Poems and Editorials of Arthur Hurt Taylor

[Jackson, Miss.: Tucker Printing House (1928)]. 36pp. 7¾ x 5¼ inches. Quarter cloth and patterned, paper-covered boards with title label. Some browning to boards; small corner loss to one leaf; very good.

First and sole edition of this memorial collection of writings by teacher, soldier, poet, and journalist, Arthur Hurt Taylor. Among Hart's editorials printed here are "On the Hearing of the Death of Joel Chandler Harris" and "Jack Canuck and the Great War."

A native of Lodi, Mississippi, Taylor graduated from Mississippi College in 1901. He owned the Mangum Star newspaper in Oklahoma (the source of some of the present editorials) before joining the Daily Oklahoman and later writing for newspapers in the Southwest and the Pacific Coast.

Taylor enlisted in the army during the Spanish-American War, though he was underage, serving in a Mississippi regiment. At the start of the First World War, he was writing for a newspaper in western Canada when he enlisted as a private in a Canadian regiment. Wounded at the Battle of the Somme, Taylor subsequently returned to active service, but was reported "wounded and missing" and later presumed dead after the Battle of Cambria.

This copy inscribed by J.E. Taylor (possibly his brother John) and Arthur's youngest brother, Oscar Bomar Taylor. The Taylors presented it to Henry Hart who adds his own inscription appreciating "this book as its author was a Lodi product."

OCLC lists seven holdings, only one outside of Mississippi (UVa).

Notes. The book includes an introductory biography of Taylor by one of his teachers at Mississippi College. Also see James B. Lloyd's Lives of Mississippi Authors, 1817-1967 (University Press of Mississippi, 1981), p430. Taylor's name is sometimes seen in the record as Arthur Hart Taylor.