the Despot
Political Science Fiction?
A prescient book is reprinted and recommended for the well-stocked Confederate bookshelf:
From the Richmond Daily Dispatch August 14, 1862:
A Prophetic book.
Those indefatigable publishers. West & Johnston, have reproduced another book, which is having a great run, and, what is better, deserves to have it, “The [Partisan] Leader,” that celebrated novel published by the late Judge Beverly Tucker in 1826 [1836?] and which so marvelously applies to current events that some persons, not acquainted with its have seemed to suspect that it must have been gotten up since the beginning of the present war. It is a shrilling [thrilling?] and powerful narrative, but most wonderful in its character as “a tale of the future,” new literally fulfilled. The present edition,” is edited by Rev. Thos. A. Ware. For sale by West & Johnson.
The Partisan Leader (1836) was the best-known book by Nathaniel Beverley Tucker (1784-1851). Set in 1849 it depicts Virginia guerrillas fighting against Union forces so that Virginia can join the independent Confederacy already in existence. The Union is led by president-turned-dictator Martin Van Buren.
