FIFTY YEARS SINCE: AN ADDRESS, Delivered before the Alumni of the University of North Carolina, on the 7th June, 1859, (Being the Day Before the Annual Commencement.)

Chapel Hill: John B. Neathery, 1861. [Title and publisher from front wrap.] 8vo. 34 pages. Original printed wraps, bound into dark blue library cloth with gilt spine lettering. Gilt call number on front cover and bookplate on front pastedown, but the only library marking on the pamphlet itself is a penciled call number on the verso of the front wrap (now erased, but leaving a faint impression on the recto). Otherwise near very good. Faint foxing to front wrap; moderate, mostly marginal foxing to first text leaf; a few light traces elsewhere. Leaves a little age-toned. Some very slight evidence of marginal damping. Two leaves with light creases. Second edition overall, but the FIRST CONFEDERATE EDITION. The true first edition was issued in Raleigh in 1859. The address recalls life at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill during the first decades of the 19th century. William Hooper (1792-1867) received his B.A. from U.N.C. in 1809 at the age of 17 and his M.A. in 1812. He later taught ancient languages at the Univerity and served for a time as the chair of logic and rhetoric. During his long career, he taught at several other institutions in the Carolinas and served as a president of Wake Forest College. Hooper was also a leader in the Baptist Church and an ordained minister. His published works consist mostly of sermons and speeches, and the present address is perhaps his best remembered. "In it may be seen evidence of profound learning, aptness of phrase and construction, cleverness of expression, and much underlying humor. The elegance and purity of his style, though there is a verbosity not familiar in these later days of brevity, cannot fail to excite admiration. The humor is over-scholarly, sometimes labored; but any man who could instill even a small film of wit into a discourse so carefully phrased, with classical quotations or philosophical deviations in control of almost every paragraph, must have had in his soul a well of genuine light-heartedness. Whoever reads `Fifty Years Since,' and nobody can read without enjoying it, will be convinced that in Dr. Hooper was to be found the rare combination of deep study, broad thought, true wit, and friendship for humanity." --Ralph H. Graves in Library of Southern Literature, p. 2509. Parrish and Willingham 7751. Thornton 6368.