Roebuck: A Novel by [RUSSELL, Charles Wells] - 1866

New York: M. Doolady, Publisher, 448 Broome Street, 1866. Hardcover. Very Good. First edition. Octavo. pp. [1-3] 4-329 [330 (blank)]. Publisher's light purple cloth over boards, gilt spine, mustard-yellow endpapers. Fading to the spine and board edges, a few small tears to the spine ends and front joint, very good or better. A defender of the Old South, Charles Russell was a prominent Confederate States of America attorney and politician during the Civil War. He presents this story of the fate of a Virginia plantation and its slaves during the Civil War from a Southern viewpoint: "Colonel Frederick Fairfax, the last who has borne that name ... was among the most successful planters of Virginia ... As a slaveholder a numerous population depended upon him, and, with his accustomed energy, he exercised over them the functions both of guardian and governor. No slaves had their wants supplied with more judicious or provident liberality than his ... Believing the servitude of negroes under a superior race to be a needful supplement to their improvident nature, he did not, with sentimental inconsistency, shrink from the exercise of the authority and discipline which servitude implies. He was a humane master, but he was master." A handsome copy of Russell's tribute to the Lost Cause. Scarce in the trade. *OCLC* locates only two physical copies, both at the British Library, and there is a copy in the Wilmer Collection of Civil War Novels at the University of North Carolina. *Sabin* 72579; *Wright, American Fiction 1851-1875* (2140).