[MORMONS]. [TRUE CRIME]. BONNEY, Edward (1807-1864). Banditti of the Prairies, or the Murderer’s Doom!! A Tale of the Mississippi Valley. Chicago: Edward Bonney, 1850. 8vo. Illustrated with 13 inserted plates and engraved title-page. [5, sic] - 196 pp. Bound with 23 issues of The Cabinet of Literature, Instruction, and Amusement, Vol. 1 No.1 through Vol. 1 No. 23 [New York: Theodore Burling, 1828-29]. Bound in contemporary half calf over marbled boards (spine perished, boards heavily worn, hinges cracking, ownership signature of the first leaf of The Cabinet section “C. W. Herring,” ffep a bit loose, text toned, foxed, occasionally soiled (Banditti… appears to be cleaner than the issues of The Cabinet…)) Very good.
THE INCREDIBLY RARE FIRST EDITION OF BANDITTI; as best as we can tell no copy has been at auction since 1963, and that was the only first edition to appear at auction before the current copy. An auction record for the Wright Howes auction house from 1936 states that “Only 2 copies of the 1st Edn. (printed by Bonney; in 1850) are recorded…” It is unclear if the present copy is one of the two copies recorded.
This true crime account, written by private detective, Mormon official, hotel keeper, and counterfeiter Edward Bonney, is his first-hand account of how he tracked down the murderers of Col. George Davenport (1743-1845, the namesake of Davenport, IA). The murderers were part of a “Banditti” gang, one of a loose-knit group of outlaw gangs terrorizing parts of Illinois, Iowa, Indiana and Ohio. Their increasingly violent crimes were eventually met with equally-violent responses by various groups of vigilantes. Bonney was an official for the Mormon community, and friend of Joseph Smith, who named Bonney to the Mormon “Council of Fifty,” as one of 3 non-Mormons, in Nauvoo, IL. After Smith’s death in 1844, Bonney was discharged as a non-believer by the Mormon community; however, Bonney continued to work and conduct vigilante justice inside and outside the Mormon community of Nauvoo.
This work is fairly critical of Mormon leadership of the time, and is an incredibly rare document of the early Mormon church. “Sensational account of the tracking down of these confederated criminals, mostly Mormons, who murdered Colonel Davenport at Rock Island and terrorized the upper Mississippi valley, from 1843 to 1848.” Howes B-606. Flake 590. Adams, Six-Guns 112.