LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF POLK WELLS THE NOTORIOUS OUTLAW

Halls, Mo.: G. A. Warnica. Very Good+. 1907. First Edition. Hardcover. Continued Title : (Whose Acts of fearlessness and Chivalry Kept the Frontier Trails Afire with Excitement, and whose Robberies and other Depredations in the Platte Purchase and Elsewhere, have been a Most Frequent Discussion to this day, all of which Transpired During and Just After The Civil War. ) Bound in clean red cloth, gilt title on front cover with a double ruled border. Texts Interior is tight, clean & intact. B/W photograph illustrations. Decorated endpaper. The life of Polk Wells is exceptionally full of the frontier life of the West. Written by himself while an inmate in the Fort Madison Penitentiary, Iowa. Unusual inscription to A H Greenly (the noted Michigan Historian) on front endpaper dated Oct. 28, 1942 " Presented to A. H. Greenly - as a monument to the folly of .........Wright Howes". Wright Howes (of antiquarian americana fame) had derided this book as the "feeble 'apologia' of a second-rate, highly unsuccessful outlaw who claimed he was a 'chum' of Kit Carson, Slade and 'Wild Bill'!" Wells wrote his memoirs while serving a life sentence for murder and died in a prison hospital in 1896. Crime; B/W Photographs; 8vo 8" - 9" tall; 259 pages; Signed by Notable Personage, Unrelated .