Rare book: Warren Gamaliel Harding, President of the United States: A Review of Facts Collected from Anthropological, Historical, and Political Researches by William Estabrook Chancellor. First edition. Dayton, Ohio: The Sentinel Press, 1922. Hardcover, 6 x 8.75, 267 pages. A prefatory page bears Chancellor's pre-printed facsimile signature. Book condition: VG-/None, with ownership inscription to front pastedown, cracked rear hinge, edgewear, and worn title gilt on the spine. This very rare book—whose authorship is disputed in itself—controversially asserted that Harding had an African-American ancestor; the book was subsequently suppressed by government agents, making it extremely rare today. Harding's biographer S. H. Adams, in a chapter titled 'Bibliocide,' called Chancellor's book 'one of the most sensational books in our political history.' Francis Russell's The Shadow of Blooming Grove offers an extensive discussion of the Chancellor book, deeming it 'one of the rarest bibliographical items in twentieth-century history.' It very rarely comes up for sale—the only record of it in American Book Prices Current is from a 1980 Sotheby's auction, and another example surfaced in 2004—and only twenty-five copies are listed on WorldCat as being held by libraries and institutions worldwide.
