8vo. (Contemporary portrait of Edwin Booth pasted to preliminary blank.) Original blue cloth stamped in gilt and black (rubbing, spine ends worn, front free endpaper disbound, spotting to endpapers).

PRESENTATION COPY. INSCRIBED BY EDWIN BOOTH TO NEIL BENEDICT.

Following Lincoln's assassination, Asia Booth Clarke's husband, John Sleeper Clarke, as well as her brothers Junius and Joseph, were imprisoned. Upon release, Clarke demanded that he and Asia either divorce or leave the United States. They left for England in late 1865, and to cope with her grief following the assassination and the death of her beloved brother John she began work on three volumes about her family, with the first being a biography of her father that she had intended to write with John, the second a dual biography of her father and her brother Edwin, and the final being a memoir of John Wilkes Booth which was completed in 1874 but was not published until 1938.

PROVENANCE:
Neil Benedict (inscription); a private collection (bookplate)