Desirable early biography of a founding father: Sketches of the Life and Character of Patrick Henry by Wiliam Wirt. First edition. Philadelphia: James Webster, 1817. Hardcover bound in full brown calf, 5.25 x 8.5, 427 pages. Book condition: G/None, with both boards cleanly detached but present, scuffing and rubbing to boards, and the bookplate of Joel Davis Madden, Jr., affixed inside front board; the textblock remains remarkably clean and tightly bound. Accompanied by a custom-made quarter-leather clamshell case.
Wirt's biography of Patrick Henry has been severely criticized both for its hero worship and its style, the subject of the biography having been regarded by many as a creation of Wirt rather than Patrick Henry. The book contains the supposed text of some of Henry's speeches, many of which had never been published. Some historians have since speculated that some of Henry's phrases that have since become famous—such as 'Give me Liberty, or give me Death!'—were fabricated by Wirt for this book. Even Wirt's contemporary Thomas Jefferson shelved his copy of the biography under fiction.
Joel Davis Madden, Jr., left Princeton University in 1905 and moved west to make his fortune in the railroad industry. He went on to become an executive with the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, and died suddenly in 1928 at the age of 41. His book collection, offered by his granddaughter, has not been publicly offered or privately sold in a century.
