Historic biography of the influential statesman and Supreme Court justice: The Life of John Marshall, Vols. I-IV, by Albert J. Beveridge. First edition. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1916-1919. Hardcover bound in green cloth with gilt-stamped facsimile signatures on the front, 6 x 9, 2438 pages. Book condition: VG/None, with sunning to spines of the first two volumes, edgewear, and the bookplate of Joel Davis Madden, Jr., affixed inside each book. In this monumental work, Beveridge connects events in John Marshall's life with his later rulings on the US Supreme Court; the author received a Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography in 1920 for his efforts.
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.
