Struck a lead. An historical tale of the upper lead region ... Joseph Cover, Jr., publisher
Chicago: Jameson & Morse, 162-164 Clark Street, 1883. First book edition of the only novel by Minnesota's first printer, slim 8vo, pp. 115, [1]; publisher's ochre cloth stamped in black and red; some soiling but generally a very good, bright, and sound copy. "In the fall of 1841 [8 years prior to his arrival in Minnesota] Goodhue was practicing law in Plattesville, Wisconsin, a little town in the lead region in the southwestern part of the territory ... Goodhue's law practice was not so heavy as to consume all his energy, for he found time for writing and lecturing. Communications on various subjects from his pen appeared in the Galena Advertiser and the Grant County Herald, published at Lancanster, Wisconsin; and in the Advertiser, in the issues from November 14, 1843, to January 2, 1844, published serially Struck a Lead. An Original Tale by James Goodhue." The story is one of adventure and romance in the lead mining region in the early 1840's. Most of the characters are adventurers of various kinds and conditions drawn to the lead mines to make their fortunes by hook or crook. The hero, a young man of dubious principles, reforms, wins his fortune and the lovely lady of his affections, and becomes a pillar of the church, while the villans of the tale are buried alive in a mineral hole. As literature, the novel has little merit; but descriptions of a steamboat race on the Mississippi River, of Galena, life in the lead district, mining methods, and the workings of the law on the frontier give it some interest and historical value ... Many years after Goodhue's death the novel was published in book form in Chicago, 1883" (Berthel, Horns of Thunder: The Life and Times of James M. Goodhue, pp. 6-7). Wright III, 2203. Item #60959
Price: $250.00
