Wainewright The Poisoner; The Confessions of Thomas Griffiths Wainewright Hardcover (1/4 boards 3/4 boards) - 2000

Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2000. First Edition. Hardcover (1/4 Boards 3/4 Boards). Very Good Condition/Good. Illustrator: Illustrated. list of illustrations, acknowledgements, foreword, select bibliography and index. The text is illustrated with 16 pages of black and white illustrations/photographs between pages 138 and 139. 1/4 black coloured backstrip with silver titles. 3/4 green coloured boards. Illustrated dustwrapper with brown and green coloured titles to the front panel and backstrip. The colourful autobiography/biography of Thomas Griffiths Wainewright, 19th-century painter, writer, dandy and friend to major figures of the Romantic period and poisoner. Convicted of forgery (there was never enough evidence to prove murder) he was sent to the penal colony of Tasmania. He died there in 1847. Using a blend of " .. creative imagination and scholarly sleuthing, Andrew Motion evokes Waine-wright's double life in a tour de force of the biographer's art. Cast in the form of a partly fictionalised "confession" written by the subject himself, buttressed (and sometimes contradicted) by the notes, background essays and other commentary setting out the known-facts, it reveals the man as no straightforward history could do – his distinctive voice, his wit and charm, his callousness and unreliability, this pathos and, perhaps, his capacity for murder." -- from the front fold over panel blurb. Softening to the head and to the heel of the backstrip and rubbing to the book corners. The front fore edge has been hand cut. Rubbing to the dustwrapper panels which also has a few marks. This is the first USA edition. Size: 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. (8), IX-XIX, (3), 3-276, (6) pages,. Please refer to accompanying picture (s). Illustrator: Illustrated. Quantity Available: 1. Shipped Weight: Under 1 kilo. Category: Biography & Autobiography; Art; Australia; 18th century; Law & Criminal Studies. ISBN: 0375402098. ISBN/EAN: 9780375402098. Inventory No: 0113988. . 9780375402098