This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 2/25/2023
DEVOL, George H. (1829-1903). Forty Years A Gambler on the Mississippi. Cincinnati: Devol & Haines, 1887. Portrait frontispiece of Devol with plates. Publisher’s blue cloth stamped in gilt (spine chipped, faint toning, some spotting). First edition. 8vo. Hinges starting, corners bumped, several page edges chipped; text block uniformly toned. Former owner’s address label to front pastedown, old ownership signature ink. Good. Not in Jessell; Powell 38. Scarce. INSCRIBED AND SIGNED on the flyleaf by Devol: “Presented to H.R. Dante by Geo H Devol Nov. the 13 The Author” and with an ALS tipped to the rear pastedown regarding Devol and his book. See Celebrations of Curious Characters, p. 57. The tipped-in ALS signed by F[rank] H. Bulis at the rear gives a firsthand account of Devol that is none too flattering: “I despised George DeVol so thoroughly that I never gave his book a place on my shelves. For all the loud mouthed overbearing cowardly petty-larceny “tinhorns” who ever lived he was the chief.” The letter goes on to mention Dr. A.M. Wilson of Kansas City, as well as David P. Abbott and T. Nelson Downs (the latter also in a somewhat disparaging tone: “Downs never gambled and there’s a vast difference between theory and actual practice.”), all three of them noted conjurers.