The County Kerchief [Inscribed Copy]
![The County Kerchief [Inscribed Copy]](https://d3525k1ryd2155.cloudfront.net/h/882/180/1616180882.0.x.jpg)
- SIGNED
- Toronto: The Ryerson Press, 1949
Toronto: The Ryerson Press, 1949. First Edition. First printing. Inscribed on the front endpaper: "To Harry P. Martin / who qualifies on two counts - one, the fraternity of the book; two a friend of E.L. Deitch who gives this volume, with the aproval of / Louis Blake Duff," dated March, 1949. Octavo (20cm). Yellow cloth; dustwrapper; 224pp. Tight, straight, and unmarked; Near Fine. In the original pictorial dustwrapper, slightly soiled on lighter portions; small sticker remnant to front panel; Very Good.
Duff (1878-1959) was a Canadian journalist, bibliophile, and private press printer (proprietor of the Baskerville Press in Welland, Ontario). In the current, somewhat uncommon work Duff takes us on a breezy (somewhat windy, actually) tour of death-by-hanging in all ages, concluding with a chapter considering the abolition of hanging, which he notes at this time was still the most common means of legal execution in many Western countries. A contemporary Canadian reviewer, apparently either blind or immune to Duff's rather baroque prose style, noted that: "...Mr. Duff's book, because of its very restraint, is more eloquent propaganda [for the abolition of capital punishment] than any number of learned treatises" (Fred Landon, in The Canadian Historical Review, Sep. 1949). A nifty little book probably unknown to many collectors of books on the subject; uncommon in the trade and this copy nicely inscribed.
Duff (1878-1959) was a Canadian journalist, bibliophile, and private press printer (proprietor of the Baskerville Press in Welland, Ontario). In the current, somewhat uncommon work Duff takes us on a breezy (somewhat windy, actually) tour of death-by-hanging in all ages, concluding with a chapter considering the abolition of hanging, which he notes at this time was still the most common means of legal execution in many Western countries. A contemporary Canadian reviewer, apparently either blind or immune to Duff's rather baroque prose style, noted that: "...Mr. Duff's book, because of its very restraint, is more eloquent propaganda [for the abolition of capital punishment] than any number of learned treatises" (Fred Landon, in The Canadian Historical Review, Sep. 1949). A nifty little book probably unknown to many collectors of books on the subject; uncommon in the trade and this copy nicely inscribed.